Réginald Schultes, Analogies Used to Describe Dogmatic Progress (a. 16)

Brief Translation Introduction

This translation is presented as a relatively stable sketch of this chapter from Reginald Schultes’s Introductio in historiam dogmatum. The text has been edited and reviewed, though it is not in the kind of final form of review that I would do for a published translation. My translation of this book ended up becoming one of the various important background texts used for a pedagogical essay that I am just now finishing concerning Dogmatic Development. I am posting the text here on To Be a Thomist for those who might be interested in referring to an English draft. I would like to thank Mr. Mitchell Kengor for his help filling out the details of footnote references.

Article Sixteen: Analogies Used to Describe Dogmatic Progress¹

I. Dogmatic progress is certainly a sui generis process: Neither in nature nor in history is there some other process that is equivalent or similar in all respects to what takes place in dogmatic progress. Nonetheless, from a variety of perspectives it does bear an analogy to other processes. In other words, it shares something similar to them, inasmuch as something common is found, mutatis mutandis, in dogmatic progress and in other similar processes.² Therefore, having determined the specific [propria] nature of dogmatic progress, we must make use of analogies, for such analogies are of great utility, since they further illuminate the nature of dogmatic progress. However, when we use them, we must proceed with caution: 1˚ we must take care to not overemphasize the likeness involved and also must avoid neglecting what makes dogmatic progress specifically distinct (for no few errors concerning the nature dogmatic progress have taken their origin from lack of care on these points); 2˚ analogies of this kind must³ be based on the theological and historical concept of the development of dogmas, and be used to illuminate it, not vice versa—for less rightly do many insist, almost exclusively, on bringing to bear such analogies⁴ and on that basis determine the doctrine of dogmatic development.

II. The best-known analogy for dogmatic development is found in Vincent of Lerins’s first Commonitorium. First, he distinguishes between change and progress, admitting only progress in the knowledge of Christian doctrine:⁵

But perhaps someone will say: “Therefore, there will be no religious progress in Christ’s Church?” Let there be great and abundant progress... But let it take place in such a way that such faith would truly progress, not suffer alteration. For progress requires that each thing be enlarged into itself, whereas alteration involves on thing being transformed into another. Therefore, understanding, knowledge, and wisdom must grow and progress with vigor both individually and in all, both for in particular persons and in the whole Church—through the ages and the centuries—though in its own kind, that is, in the same dogma, in the same meaning, and in the same judgment.⁶

Second, Vincent explains this kind of progress by means of an analogy to the development of bodily beings and seeds:

The growth of religion in the soul is akin to bodily growth, which remains the same even though it is developed and attains its full size through the course of years. There is a wide difference between the flower of youth and the maturity of age; nonetheless, they who were once young are still the same now that they have become old, such that his nature and his person both remain one and the same even though his stature and outward form has changed. An infant’s limbs are small, a young man's large, yet the infant and the young man are the same. Men when full grown have the same number of joints that they had when children; and if there be any to which maturer age has given birth these were already present in potency [in seminis], so that in older age nothing new is produced in them which was not already latent in them when they were children… But if the human form [species] were changed into some shape belonging to another genus of beings, or at any rate, if the number of its limbs were increased or diminished, the result would be that the whole body would perish, become a monstrosity, or at the least surely be weakened.

Thus Christian doctrine should follow these same laws of progress, so as to be solidified through the years, enlarged over the course of time, refined by age, and yet remain uncorrupted and intact, complete and perfect in all the measurement of its parts, and, so to speak, in all its proper members and senses, admitting no exchange, no wasting what is distinctly proper to it, and no variation in its definition…

There might be change in appearance or form, but the nature of each kind remains the same…

Therefore, whatever has been sown by the fidelity of the Fathers in this husbandry of God’s Church, this same thing should be cultivated and cared for by the industry of their children, this same thing should flourish and ripen, and this same thing should advance and press onward to perfection. For it is right that, with the passage of time, those ancient doctrines of heavenly philosophy should be cared for, smoothed, and polished. But, it would be wrong for them to be changed, maimed, or mutilated. They may receive proof, illumination, and definiteness; however, they must retain their completeness, integrity, and characteristic properties.⁷

This classical analogy from Vincent of Lérins is primarily concerned with the substantial stability of revelation in the midst of dogmatic explication, and in this sense in particular has it been received by Catholic theology.⁸ However, it indicates the nature of dogmatic progress only in a very vague way.⁹ Hence, later theologians strove to determine more closely the analogy made to the growth of bodies and seeds.

III. John Henry Newman, while he was still a Protestant (though he later was a Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church [S. R. E.]), ingeniously made use of Vincent of Lérins’ analogy in order to determine the distinction between progress and corruption of Christian doctrine.¹⁰ In the development of any organism, he says, the ultimate parts and proportions correspond to its original parts and proportions, even if great alteration takes place in between; by contrast, in organic corruption, the organism is dissolved into its parts, such that its unity is destroyed. According to this analogy, the corruption of ideas tends toward the dissolution of complex of ideas, the destruction of the unifying type, the removal of the vital principle, and the driving out of the original ideas by ones that are opposed to them. By contrast, the signs of true progress are: the preservation of the original type or idea, the continuity of principles, assimilative power in relation to other ideas, a kind of anticipation of later doctrine, logical connection, consonance of new things with old ones, and finally, historical continuity. Finally, he proves that this kind of progress is found in the development of Catholic doctrine.

Therefore, according to Newman, dogmatic progress has an analogy to the development of ideas, and the development of ideas to organic development. Now, with this explanation Newman certainly opened a new way for the teaching concerning the development of dogmas, although his proposed explanation falls short in many respects because his presupposed theory of knowledge. Newman does not, properly speaking, intend to explain the unique nature of the development of the Church’s dogmas, but instead wishes to show that the progress of Catholic doctrine is true and legitimate. Therefore, in the first chapter he shows, in general fashion, the need for ideas to develop; thereafter, he establishes the laws of such development and applies them to Catholic doctrine. In any case, the modernists unjustly exploited for their own ends the teaching that he set forth.¹¹

IV. Thus, Ambroise Gardeil judges Vincent’s analogy as follows:

This beautiful analogy has two undeniable merits. First, it takes into account the preponderant role played by the intimate and exterior divine influence upon the development of an essentially supernatural seed, which is why it is perfectly Catholic. Secondly, it provides a splendid illustration of the dual character of this process, which involves both novelty and fundamental identity in the midst of the successive movements involved in the objective affirmation of the revealed Truth. The notes that it provides for discerning authentic development are real and telling.¹²

V. Bernard Allo¹³ proposes, in place of the analogy of a seed, that of leaven. For Christian doctrine, he says, only progressed materially and accidentally, inasmuch as it was already fully and actually in the minds of the Apostles,¹⁴ only to be formulated, defended, given systematic form, and thereafter applied.¹⁵ Now, the comparison of Christian doctrine to leaven is excellent, inasmuch as this doctrine assimilated to itself human minds, manners, teachings, and institutions. Hence, in the end, he brings forward the analogy of a chemical agent.¹⁶ As is clear from the context, Allo defends and illuminates the substantial stability of the Christian faith (against Loisy and Harnack); however, the analogy of leaven casts more light on the influence that Christian religion exercises on mankind than it does on its dogmatic progress.¹⁷

VI. Arnoldus Rademacher was particularly concerned with articulating the analogy between organic and dogmatic growth.¹⁸ Just as in organic growth, he says, not only is a whole divided into its pre-existing parts but also new formations arise which were found as such in the cell only in germ, so too in dogmatic progress certain ideas are not only divided into their parts but, indeed, at the same time, “simply speaking, new doctrines” are proposed, doctrines that as such existed only in the productive and teleological power of the primitive doctrine. Thus, he situates the analogy in view of the case of organic differentiation.¹⁹ Through this analogy of differentiation or epigenesis new formulations can be illuminated in particular, as well as theological deductions. However, without cause, the author seems to presuppose that only very few ideas or doctrines have been revealed, and it cannot be admitted that even one defined dogma would exist in revealed doctrine only as in a productive power or only teleologically (as an end).²⁰

VII. Other authors, like De la Barre,²¹ De Grandmaison,²² Bainvel,²³ Gardeil,²⁴ and Garrigou-Lagrange²⁵ prefer drawing an analogy with human knowledge.

Such authors insist that the progress of science presupposes certain and immutable facts, which are indeed explored and explained, though in such a way that science, through the process of continuous reflection or, as it were, a return to the facts, examines its own conclusions in the light of the facts. This also takes place in the explanation of revealed truths, in which case revealed truth takes the place of sensible facts. Ambroise Gardeil furthermore strives to explain the mode of this analogy by making use of a three-stage process of development.²⁶

VIII. Garrigou-Lagrange prefers to use the analogy of the transition from vague to distinct knowledge, or from obscure to distinct knowledge.²⁷

IX. Conclusion.— All such analogies contain some truth. But they each fall short insofar as each only illuminates one portion of what dogmatic progress is. If, however, the different portions or aspects of dogmatic progress are distinguished from each other, then such individual analogies are best applied, and indeed others can be added to this list. Thus, the authoritative proposition of dogmas has an analogy with the act of legislation by the state, and similarly the interpretation of revelation with the authoritative interpretation of laws—with the difference, however, that the state or the Church passes the laws according to its own discretion and not infrequently modifies them by interpreting them, whereas the Church can only propose revealed doctrine to be believed. Progress from implicit faith or knowledge to explicit faith or knowledge is represented both by the analogy of organic growth and by progress in knowledge. However, according to the laws of nature, bodily growth necessarily follows the power and disposition of the seed and external causes, whereas the unfolding of revealed truths depends on the free activity of men and God’s own free illuminating activity. Similarly, progress in human knowledge is from universal knowledge to particular knowledge, whereas dogmatic progress is only from implicit to explicit knowledge, that is, to objectively equivalent knowledge. Dogmatic formulation is brought about in a way that is analogous to scientific formulation. However, in scientific formulation the formula used can be adequate, whereas concepts used in the process of dogmatic formulation only inadequately express the revealed reality, since they can only be applied to it in an analogous sense.

Similarly, the properties of dogmatic progress can be expressed by way of various likenesses. The substantial stability and immutability of dogmas is best represented by organismic stability; however, it also has an analogy to the stability of the first principles of knowledge. The infallible truth of dogmas has a kind of likeness to the natural necessity of organic evolution according to the laws of nature, founded by the Author of nature, whereas the infallibility of the Church in preserving, interpreting, and defining revealed truths is founded upon the supernatural assistance of the Holy Spirit. And accidents or errors in the explanation of revelation have a clear analogy in the history of science or human knowledge, though in such a way that error cannot prevail in the Church.

X. The terms used for dogmatic progress.—Even the names used for designating the process by which dogmas are made are themselves analogous. As we have seen, Vincent of Lérins calls this process “profectum, progress.” The scholastics in the Middle Ages created the term “explicationis revelatorum, the explication of the revealed truths,” which is indeed etymologically analogous, though from the teaching of the scholastics and the secular use made of it, the expression took on the force of a technical term and its own meaning. Hence, it must be completely retained as a technical and common term.²⁸ Modern Catholic authors often use the term “progressus dogmatici, dogmatic progress.” the analogy is clear, but the expression is too vague. Others prefer the term from common language (développement, sviluppo, development, Entwicklung). Such terms seem to correspond most closely to the Latin term “explicatio,” and hence it likewise should be retained in common language, although as a technical term, that is, according to the meaning determined in theology. Non-Catholics, however, as well as many Catholics, speak of the “evolutio, evolution [or development]” of dogmas, while many Catholics reject such a name. Certainly, Protestant, rationalist, and modernist authors wish to use this term to signify substantial change in the primitive doctrine [revealed by God]. And, consequently, the use of the term in this sense is to be avoided and condemned. Similarly, the term “evolution” is, in practice, the proper and technical name of organic evolution, meaning that it can only be analogically transferred to the explication of revelation. However, organic evolution is only one specific type of evolution. If, therefore, the term “evolution” is taken generically, especially if it is understood in the scholastic sense, as the transition from potency to act,²⁹ as far as the term itself is concerned, nothing prevents one from using the term “evolution [or development] of dogmas.” For in the history of dogmas there really is a transition from potency to act, both on the side of the ecclesiastical act of proposing truths (inasmuch as certain dogmas are actually and particularly proposed for be believed over the course of time), and also on the part of explanation, formulation, and knowledge, which really are brought into act successively. For this reason and in the sense that has been set forth up to this point, we too have in this work used the expression “evolutio dogmatum, the evolution [or development] of dogmas,” as have other Catholics.

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1. See Jacques Marie Achille Ginoulhiac, Histoire du dogme Catholique: pendant les trois premiers siècles de l'eǵlise et jusqu'au Concile de Niceé, 3rd ed., ([Paris: Auguste Durand, Libraire, 1867-1922]), xxviiff.↩︎

2. “Certain things are said to be similar which share in the same form [forma], but not according to the same ratio..., but rather, according to some analogy” (ST, q. 4, a. 3); "a name that is thus said in many ways signifies different proportions to one thing" (ST I, q. 13, a. 5); “A similar ratio according to proportion—this is what is properly called analogy” (Cajetan, in his work De analogia nomina; cf. idem, In ST I, q. 13, a. 5, no. 12).↩︎

3. See Arnoldus Rademacher, Der Entwicklungsgedanke in Religion und Dogma, (Cologne: J.P. Bachem, 1914), 91.↩︎

4. Nearly all modern explanations of dogmatic progress only make use of analogies, neglecting proper, theological explanations, especially those of the scholastics.↩︎

5. See Vincent of Lérins, Commonitory, ch. 23 [others, 28] [ed. Gerhard Rauschen, Florilegium patristicum, tam veteris quam medii aevi auctores complectens, ([Bonn]: sumptibus Petri Hanstein, 1906), fasc. 5].↩︎

6. Ibid. The closing words were cited and approved by the [First] Vatican Council in Dei filius, ch. 4 and canon 4.3 (Denzinger, nos. 3022 [1800] and 3043 [1818]).↩︎

7. Ibid. [Tr. note: For these, I referred to the Heurtley translation, though with significant alterations and an eye to Fr. Schultes’s own Latin, which is mostly the same as the underlying text for Heurtley. See Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 11. trans. C.A. Heurtley, eds. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1894), revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight, <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3506.htm>]↩︎

8. See Cf. Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, “Premier avertissement sur les lettres de M. Jurien,” c. 4, in Œuvres, vol. VIII [No Publication Information], p. 217ff.↩︎

9. See Ambroise Gardeil, Le donné révélé et la théologie. [2^nd ed., (Paris: [Librairie Victor Lecoffre J. Gabalda & C^ie], 1910)], 159ff; W.S. Reilly, Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus, étude sur la règle de foi de S. Vincent de Lérins, thèse soutenue à la Faculté de théologie de l'Institut catholique de Paris, par W.-S. Reilly, (Tours : A. Mame et fils, 1903); Étienne Hugueny, “La Tradition: Étude Apologétique,” Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques, vol. 6, no. 4 (Paris: Libraire Philosophique J. Vrin, 1912), 710–731.↩︎

10. See John Henry Newman, An Essay on Development of Christian Doctrine (London: Basil Montagu Pickering, 1878). See the exposition of his argument presented in [Edmund] Dublanchy, “Dogme” in Dictionnaire de Théologie catholique, vol. 4, pt. 2, eds. Alfred Vacant, Eugène Mangenot, and Émile Amann (Paris: Librairie Letouzey et Anè, 1924), cols 1630–1636.↩︎

11. See Anton Gisler, Der Modernismus [4th ed., (Einsiedeln: Benzinger, 1913)], 604–8; Christian Pesch, Theologische Zeitfragen 4: Folge, Glaube, Dogmen und geschichtliche Tatsachen: eine Untersuchung über den Modernismus, (Fribourg: Herder, 1908), 174–200; P.P. McKenna, The Theology of Faith, (Dublin: Brown and Nolan, Limited, 1914), 262ff; and also see the article by Dublanchy in the Dictionnaire de théologie catholique cited above.↩︎

12. Ambroise Gardeil, Le donné révélé et la théologie. [2^nd ed., (Paris: [Librairie Victor Lecoffre J. Gabalda & C^ie], 1910)], 155; see the author’s restrictions on 156ff.↩︎

13. See Ernest Bernard Allo, “Germe et ferment” in Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques, vol. 1, no. 1(Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1907), 20–43; Foi et systèmes [Paris: Bloud, 1908], 223–262; and Ambroise Gardeil “Le développement du Dogme” in Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques, vol. 3, no. 3, (Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1909), 447–469.↩︎

14. See Allo, Foi et systems, 238: “This doctrine is not a seed, for it has not developed [évoué], nor has it been perfected intrinsically, and was already fully present in the souls of the first preachers of the faith. It became deformed, shrunken, or diluted in the systems of heterodox persons. But in Catholicism, it remained whole and entire, though without making any progress there, for it had no further need to do so, being definitive." And ibid., 253: “Religious knowledge of God is not, in itself, of a different nature, nor to be found at a different degree of perfection, than what it had on the day of Pentecost.”↩︎

15. Ibid., 250–253.↩︎

16. See ibid., 261: “The agent seems to operate by mere contact, without itself undergoing any easily-observable reaction or loss. A simple and popular example is that of the leaven which, after having made the dough rise is neither more nor less leaven than before. This is one of the interpretations that can be given to the parable: Simile est regnum coelorum fermento; The kingdom of heaven is like leaven…”↩︎

17. Cf. Arnoldus Rademacher, Der Entwicklungsgedanke in Religion und Dogma (Cologne: J.P. Bachem, 1914), 91.↩︎

18. See Arnoldus Rademacher, Der Entwicklungsgedanke in Religion und Dogma (Cologne: J.P. Bachem, 1914); cf. Karl Beth, Die Entwicklung des Christentums zur Universal Religion (Leipzig: Quelle & Meyer, 1913).↩︎

19. See [ibid.], 7–83.↩︎

20. See [ibid.], 83.↩︎

21. See André De la Barre, La vie du dogme catholique, (Paris: P. Lethielleux, 1898), appendix.↩︎

22. See Léonce De Grandmaison, “Le développement du dogme chrétienne,” Revue pratique d’Apologétique, vol. 5, (Paris: Gabriel Beauchesne, 1908), 521-542; vol. 6, (Paris: Gabriel Beauchesne, 1908), 5-33, 401-436, 881-905, here 902.↩︎

23. Jean Vincent Bainvel, De magisterio vivo et traditione (Paris: Gabriel Beauchesne, 1905), 145.↩︎

24. Ambroise Gardeil, Le donné révélé et la théologie. [2^nd ed., (Paris: [Librairie Victor Lecoffre J. Gabalda & C^ie], 1910)], 157ff.↩︎

25. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Thomistic Common Sense: The Philosophy of Being and the Development of Doctrine, trans. Matthew K. Minerd (Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Academic, 2021), 229ff; idem., On Divine Revelation, trans. Matthew K. Minerd (Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Academic, 2022), vol. 1, 317–346. [Tr. note: Fr. Schultes cites the first editions of these works, both of which were not the definitive form of texts used for the contemporary English translations. Respectively see Le sens commun, 113ff and De revelatione, 169–180.]↩︎

26. See Ambroise Gardeil, Le donné révélé et la théologie. [2^nd ed., (Paris: [Librairie Victor Lecoffre J. Gabalda & C^ie], 1910)], 160ff.↩︎

27. See Garrigou-Lagrange, Thomistic Common Sense, 230–231 and 231n3: “The true analogy that should be used for understanding the nature of the development of dogma is the progress that we noted in the knowledge we have concerning the first rational principles or, again, in the knowledge we have concerning the notions of freedom, spirituality, and so forth… Everyone possesses the first principles. They are like the very structure of reason, but the common person cannot formulate them [precisely]. Effort had to be expended by philosophers in order for this precise formulation to be discovered, determining the ways that these different principles depend on the supreme principle, the principle of identity. Real progress does indeed take place by passing from the simple adherence of common sense to what is found in the fourth book of the Metaphysics, dedicated by Aristotle to the principle of contradiction. However, this real progress is only a passage from the actual-implicit to the actual-explicit. These are the same, explicit principles.”

    “Likewise, every man is aware of his free choice; he feels himself to be the master of his acts, the master of acting or of not acting. He has an idea of freedom that is not obscure, but rather clear, in the sense that it suffices for enabling him to recognize what is free and what is not. But, nonetheless, this clear idea remains, in itself, vague [confuse]; it will be distinct only when philosophical reason determines its comprehension and defines it by connecting it to being…

    “This is how we must conceive of dogmatic development, at least for fundamental dogmas like the Trinity and the Incarnation that from the earliest days were an object of explicit faith and expressed in terms drawn from common sense. The explication of their already-clear formula was only a passage from the vague to the distinct… For other dogmas, like the infallibility of the pope or that of the Immaculate Conception, which were not the object of explicit faith from the first days, they involved passing from the obscure to the distinct, not from the vague [confuse] to the distinct. The infallibility of the pope was contained obscurely in the dogma of the infallibility of the Church and in that of the primacy of the successors of St. Peter. Likewise, the Immaculate Conception was contained in the fullness of grace attributed by the Archangel Gabriel to Mary. Thus, in the natural order, the certitude of the objectivity of our knowledge contains the certitude that the formal object of the intellect is being; this latter proposition is not contained clearly in the common man, but only obscurely, whereas he knows freedom clearly. Likewise, again, as Leibniz said (Gottfried William Leibniz, Nouveaux essais sur l'entendement humain, ([Paris: Ernest Flammarion, éditeur, 1921]), bk. 2, ch. 29), the common man [vulgaire] has an obscure knowledge of the various species of plants, the gardener a clear knowledge of them, and the botanist a distinct knowledge.”

    [Tr. note: There are only very slightly differences in Fr. Schultes’s text in comparison with the final edition used for the English translation of Le sens commun. I have used the contemporary translation, with slight modifications to match Fr. Schultes’s citation.]↩︎

28. See a. 5, prop. V above.↩︎

29. [Trans. note: Although, according to the theory held by Schultes, one must distinguish this passage from potency to act in proposition and explication from the objective passage from potency to act, as would be the case in some form of virtual revelation.]↩︎