Christianity and the modern mind CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND Six addresses delivered in the Catholic Radio Hour, Sponsored by the National Council of Catholic Men with the co-operation of the National Broadcasting Company and its Asso- ciated Stations. I. Culture and Religion. II. Reason and Revelation. III. The Authentic Four. IV. Religion, Science and Art. V. The Necessity of Religion. VI. The Crown- ing Argument: the Divinity of Christ. by Rev. John A. McClorey, S. J, of the University of Detroit National Council of Catholic Men Sponsor of the Catholic Hour 1314 Massachusetts Avenue Washington, D. C. ( CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND by Rev. John A. McClorey, S. J,. of the University of Detroit Six addresses delivered in the Catholic Radio Hour. Sponsored by the National Council of Catholic Men with the co-operation of the National Broadcasting Company and its Asso- ciated Stations. 1. Culture and Religion. II. Reason and Revelation. III. The Authentic Four. IV. Religion, Science and Art. V. The Necessity of Religion. VI. The Crown- ing Argument: the Divinity of Christ. National Council of Catholic Men Sponsor of the Catholic Hour 1314 Massachusetts Avenue Washington, D. C. PUBLISHER’S FOREWORD These six addresses on “Christianity and the Modern Mind” were everywhere received with the utmost favor by those who heard them in the Catholic Hour. Non-Catholics as well as Catholics praised them and urged their publica- tion. This interest in them has continued, so that is is felt their presentation in this form and at a nominal cost will serve a useful purpose. In large part these addresses are selections from vol- umes of sermons by Father McClorey—“The Unknown God” and “The Brazen Serpent,” both of them published by the B. Herder Book Company, St. Louis, Mo. The Herder Company generously consented to the use of the selections in these addresses. Father McClorey was the eleventh speaker in the “Cath- olic Hour.” OsscUifieci AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION One of the paradoxes of Christianity is the oblivicus- ness of most so-called Christians with regard to Christ, Christ stands before men to show them how to live, and few consider Him. Isaias said: “A child is given to us; the Prince of Peace.” But the majority of men will not be led by the Child nor accept His peace. They are sufficient unto themselves. They can play the game of life without His direction. He will do for pietists, but not for men of the world. He is relegated to the church. He has little place in the office, the workshop and society. He will do for the mom- ent of death, but not for the busy years of life. The thought of Him is to be an occasional distraction from business, a pleasant bit of spiritual sentiment, a cas- ual ethereal indulgence, a rare luxury, like the reading of poetry or the contemplating of the stars; like being impress- ed by the ocean or awed by a mountain, or charmed by a strain of music, or regaled by the fragrance of a flower. But tell the generality of men that the spirit of Christ is to permeate the flesh and blood, the bones, sinews and nerves of their daily lives in the world, and they will wonder! Tell them that Christ is to be with them when they make war and when they make love; when they dance and when they fight; when they work and when they rest; at their feasts as well as at their fasts; and they will wonder! They forget that Christ went through the phases of a human life, to show them how to live. If Christ were a living reality to us, how little hard- ness there would be among employers toward labor! How little sullen violence among laborers! How little ill feeling in the home! How little frivolous indulgence among the rich! How little complaining among the poor! If Christ’s spirit had been abroad the Great War would not have occurred. But because men were too earthly and selfish; readier to make claims than to make concessions; fonder of rights than of charity; more willing to take than to give, therefore, we saw what we saw; and see what we see! Christ is the lead- er of men, and if they will not enjoy His peace they must endure their own wars; if they will not follow Him to heaven, they must follow their own noses to hell. The purpose of this course of six addresses has been to put Christ before the people and to arouse in their hearts a great love and devotion to Him. TO THE LITTLE FLOWER WHO FOSTERED THESE ADDRESSES CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND 5 CULTURE AND RELIGION (Address delivered by Rev. John A. McClorey, S. J., in the Catholic Hour, September 28, 1930) Life contains the three fundamental factors: Morality, Culture and Religion. Morality is the end of life; culture and religion are the two means for the attainment of that end. Culture is an aid to mor- ality but an inadequate aid ; sometimes it even pan- ders to vice! Religion is necessary and sufficient for morality; and also is capable of refining in a human way. Culture may be defined as natural refinement, human development, the expansion of our mental, imaginative and emotional faculties. It is refine- ment of mind, keenness of intuition, breadth of view depth of reflection, saneness of judgment, exact- ness, clearness, swiftness of education, solidity of mental principles, tenacity and capaciousness of memory, splendor of imagination, quickness of wit, vivacity of fancy, warmth of emotion, delicacy of instinct, correctness and nicety of taste; grace, dig- nity and ease of deportment, and eloquence of speech;—in a word, culture is that assemblage of intellectual and aesthetic qualities which constitute the lady or gentleman. Now it must be evident in the first place that culture thus described,—something, namely, quite distinct from morality—is an excellent thing, worth having for itself. Even if there were no heaven to be won, no virtue to be practiced, no morality to be acquired, no commandments to be kept, even if everything were to end with death, culture would be worth acquiring and preserving. For surely, aside from any question of morality, a clear mind is bet- 6 CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND ter than a dark one, warmth of affection is prefer- able to insensibility, a good memory is more desir- able than a poor one, grace of manner is better than boorishness, social amenities are better than social aloofness, and power of expression is bet- ter than poverty of speech. I do not say that culture is the best thing in the world; morality is better, virtue is better, common honesty, laboriousness and diligence are better; but I do say it is very good. Culture is good in itself; and it is good as a means (though an insufficient means) to morality. For (all other things being equal,) the better a man’s mind, heart and imagination are developed culturally the better he ought to be morally. I do not say the better he will be but the better he ought to be. Surely the faculties given us by God have not been given in vain; but they would have been giv- en in vain if they did not help morality ; for moral- ity is the service of God, which is the only thing in life not in vain. Culture, it is true, is not a sanc- tifier; but it is at least a civilizer; and civilization ought to be an ally of sanctity. A good natural ed- ucation, like a good natural soil, ought to have a beneficial effect upon the seed of virtue. Therefore good breeding ought to lead to good living. Poetry ought to aid prayer. Literature ought to be an ally of piety. Sociability ought to be kin to fraternal charity. A good judgment ought to help a good con- science. Refinement of manners ought to help re- finement of virtue, and the very preoccupation of the mind with arts and sciences ought to be a means of excluding from it numerous immoralities. This ought to be the case; and it will be , so long as no adverse element interferes. And as culture lends itself to the personal mor- CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND 7 ality of the cultured man, so it lends itself more pow- erfully to the moral improvement of those wTith whom we may have to deal. You must be Apostles, all of you, drawing your neighbor to a better life. Now an Apostle must be not only a moral being, but also as far as circumstances permit a naturally culti- vated lady or gentleman. The grace of God is more excellent than the refinements of man; but the re- finements of man are hardly less important in deal- ing with men. For while men of the world are too often blind to the loveliness of grace, they are keen- ly sensitive to the gifts, the accomplishments, the amiability of mere humanity. You may possess the purity of an angel and yet, if, through your own fault, you do not possess a corresponding purity of diction; you may have the grace of God in abun- dance, and yet, if through your own negligence, you have not a like grace of natural character, your in- fluence for good upon the too natural world will not be what it ought to be. If you were to approach pure spirits with pure spirituality, you would suc- ceed with them; but not with men. But if you at- tempt to draw men with the “cords of Adam,” with the silken bands of human amenities, numbers of them will first love your natural gifts, then your gifts of grace and finally the Giver of both. Thus they enter through the door of nature and pass on and upward to heaven, through the portals of grace. Since, therefore, you are Apostles, all of you, why not cultivate your natural powers according to your opportunities so as to increase your efficiency in dealing with the world? The devil draws men into sin by the attractive- ness of refinement; why should you not draw them to God by the same means? Men do not embrace sin 8 CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND for the sake of its ugliness, but on account of its fair natural disguise, and they will not readily ac- cept what they think is the ugliness of virtue unless virtue is clothed in the same disguise. The differ- ence, therefore, between an apostle of Christ and an apostle of Satan is not that the one is naturally re- fined and the other is not. Both of them may be polished to the finger tips ; the difference being that the one employs his accomplishments for the devil and sin ; the other uses his for God. If we do not be- lieve and act on this truth, we shall give world- lings occasion to imagine that all the human at- tractiveness is on their side and none of it on ours; that they, forsooth, are to go through the world ar- rayed in purple, crimson and gold ; and the virtuous, in sackcloth and ashes. Let us not mislead them. The post says : “Beauty should go beautifully and God wishes that the beauty of virtue should be enhanced by the graceful garb of natural refine- ment. But when we have said this much in favor of culture as an aid to morality, we have said all that can be said for it. It is an aid to morality; but not a sufficient aid. Something else is necessary. The insufficiency of culture for morality can be easily explained. For these two forces, culture and morality, are continued in two distinct spheres of activity. Morality is in the will ; culture is in the mind. The object of morality is the good; the ob- ject of culture is only the true and beautiful. Cul- ture only refines a man; morality makes him strong. Hence, a gentleman can be refined to the nicest point without having a shadow of morality. He can be mentally exquisite and morally vile; a paragon of culture and yet a degenerate. The fair CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND 9 lily of artistic and social refinement is sometimes rooted in a swamp of turpitude ; nice manners often veil unspeakable corruption, elegant conversation frequently distils from leprous lips. No, the mind is not the will; culture is not virtue; refinement is not morality; elegance is not purity; intellectuality is not spirituality; a good judgment is not a good conscience; clear, clean-cut thinking is not clear clean living;—refined instincts, delicate tastes, aes- thetic sentiments, graceful attitudes of mind, social finish, quickness of perception and the other quali- ties belonging to culture, however sweet and ami- able they may be, are distinctly quite a different thing from virtue, from morality. And it is well for us in cultivating them to keep in mind what they are, and what they are not; what purpose they do not serve; to remember that they are graceful adornments of life ; negative dispositions for moral- ity, but nothing more. And yet no heresy is more prevalent today than to mistake cultural qualities for virtue; today, when in our literature, in social life and on our stage (when it is not corrupt,) hu- mane accomplishments, finished manners, mental tone, aesthetic attitudes of mind are presented to us as being the sum total of things worth while. The Philosopher in Samuel Johnson's Rasselas said to the youth: “Study philosophy, young man, and your virtue will be immune from attack." Shortly afterwards the youth found the Philosopher in great distress. “What's the matter?" he asked. The only answer was : “My daughter, oh, my daugh- ter, death has taken her from me." The youth said : “But this is only one of the superficial vicissitudes of life; your deep learning should make you im- mune from grief." “Young man," he said, “of what 10 CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND good is my learning to me now? Can it help me to bear this crushing blow?” No, it could not. And when grief, discourage- ment, temptations to sensuality, pride, anger, sloth and hatred come upon us, culture is not a sufficient defense. When a man stands at the open grave of his beloved, his broken heart is not mended by aes- theticism. When a young man is being allured from a clean and wholesome life by the glamour of las- civiousness, something more than a natural sense of respectability is needed to check him. The equip- ment of social, literary, and artistic life is suffi- cient for fair weather morality, but when the storm comes it is shattered to bits. We all have passions, and when the passions arise in their volcanic might, the whole exquisite fabric of cultural defenses breaks before their maddened rush. But the insufficiency of culture is not its worst feature. Culture often becomes an enemy of virtue. Learning leads to pride; literature deifies nature and humanity; aestheticism lies close to hedonism; refinement degenerates into effiminacy. How many poets, without purity! How many artists, without manliness! How many gentlemen, who are not men! How many ladies, who are not real wo- men! Has not history borne witness that too often nations rise from crude ways to natural refinements and then sink into unnatural crimes? We know the depths of moral infamy to which Greece and Rome sank from the apex of artistic and literary excel- lence. And think of our country! We can remember ruder days; but these are the days of American wealth, luxury, social amenities, intellectual pre- tensions. God grant that we too may not go down from the crest of the wave into the trough \ CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND 11 Yes, culture is good in itself; it tends to help morality; but it is an insufficient help; indeed it sometimes harms morality. Something else is need- ed for a virtuous life; and that is religion. Religion contains three essential factors; 1st, a Creed; 2nd, Commandments; 3rd, Prayer and Sa- craments, requiring of us three corresponding acti- vities: Faith, Morality and Use. For we must have faith in the Creed, are morally obliged to obey the Commandments and must use Prayer and the Sa- craments. Now it is evident that religion is suffi- cient for a virtuous life; and indeed incomparably superior to culture. The truths of the Creed are far more appealing than those of reason. The prohibi- tions of sin, as expressed in the Ten Commandments amid the lightning and thunder of Mt. Sinai, are far more arresting than those same prohibitions, as expressed in the natural law. Prayer and the Sa- craments are far more strengthening than the na- tural aids of the will. The Creed teaches the truths of Heaven, the beauty of God, the charm of virtue, the ugliness of sin, the wrath of God, the punish- ment of sin, the nobility of self-conquest so force- fully that now we have a most persuasive motive to be good. The Commandments show us how to be good; Prayer and the Sacraments strongly and sweetly help us to be good. Religion does still more. It not only helps mor- ality; it also refines in a human way. Culture can civilize but cannot sanctify. Religion can sanctify and civilize. It was the civilizer of Europe for cen- turies, as even those outside the Church admit ; and we fell into the barbarism and savagery of the World War because sovereigns of Europe attempt- ed to settle their differences by worldly prudence 12 CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND alone, according to the dictates of naturally culti- vated intellects, without letting the religious teach- ings of the Prince of Peace direct their courage. Diplomacy, statesmanship, embassies, ministers, peace conferences, and Leagues of Nations; Navy Parleys, World Courts, and in general, the whole apparatus of civilized life will never preserve or restore peace without the Prince of Peace. When we turn from states to individuals, how often are we not surprised to find the members of so-called cultured, irreligious families, perfect vul- garians ;—ladies and gentlemen who consider them- selves privileged by virtue of their standing in so- ciety, to do things which would reduce less preten- tious people to the ranks of the underworld! And how often do we not encounter poor women and men who, without having educational edvantages, are perfect ladies and gentlemen! Their refinement may be instinctive; it may be inborn, a natural in- heritance, like a fair flower springing from a rude soil, but most likely, in most cases, it is the natural by-product of supernatural religion. Newman tells us that when he went into poverty-stricken and des- olate Ireland, he was astonished. For the poor men received him into their homes with all the courtesy of a Lord welcoming him to the manor; and the poor women had the easy grace of hostesses of so- cial standing. Their religion was all they had but that was enough; for it sanctified and civilized. And why ought not religion have that effect? For since Our Lord was not only the Son of God and the preacher of morality but also the Model of courtliness; and since Mary was not only a saint, but the perfection of ladyhood, ought not women whose religion teaches them to contemplate her CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND 13 become ladies ; ought not men whose religion teaches them to contemplate Him, become gentlemen ? 14 CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND REASON AND REVELATION (Address delivered by Rev. John A. McClorey, S. J., in the Catholic Hour, October 5, 1930) While walking through the streets of your city, I saw an altar raised to the Unknown God. Him come I to preach to you. Thus speaks Paul to the Athenians in the Areopagus. Paul and the Athenians! Paul the herald to Jesus Christ! The Athenians, the cream of the cul- ture of mankind! Paul, the preacher of the Gospel! The Athenians, devotees of the Epicurean and Stoic systems of philosophy! Paul, small of stature, poorly-dressed, a traveler from afar! The Athen- ians, handsome, well-groomed, perfectly at home in Athens, the center and symbol of the intellectual aristocracy of the world. Here is a picture in con- trasts for a lover of opposites. Paul burns, his eyes sparkle, the expression of his face is tense, his whole frame is alert and eloquence pours from him overwhelmingly. His audience is polite, attentive, but sardonic and sceptical. Paul has just come from the roaring furnaces of Jesus Christ; the Athenians, from the cold lamps of Grecian philosophers. Paul is all light and heat; the Athenians shed a glacial radiance. Paul is a flaming enthusiast; the Athen- ians are detached, aloof, critical, self-contained, and proudly immune from the “vulgarity” of being aroused by any appeal. Paul is volcanic in his mag- nificent earnestness; but when he comes to a close, expecting tremendous results, the Athenians starve him with the husks of courtesy and applause. They are charmed by his elequence but callous to his spir- ituality. “Your speech was Godlike,” they say to him. “Well, then,” says Paul, “accept my God.” “As to CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND ih that,” they answer him, “we shall think of it. Come around some other day.” And Paul makes his way from the Areopagus to his obscure lodging, discour- aged and wondering. But one little consolation sus- tains him. Dionysius, Damaris, and a few others believe. All is not lost. His words have not been utterly in vain. Culture, refinement, intellectual keenness and polish (not indeed in itself but when divorced from religion) is the worst enemy of Christ. For Cul- ture is beautiful; it is graceful; it is spirituelle, esthetic, refined. For Culture is the embodiment of the strength, majesty, and enlightenment of hu- manity. It is precisely this high glory of culture that is its curse. For numbers of educated men are satisfied with it as being, they think, the utmost of things desirable. Culture is the antithesis of the gross, the ugly, the mean. If, therefore, they say, one is cultured, will he not be a clean, wholesome, and majestic man? And what more than this can religion do for him? Is Christianity the religion of love? Well, culture is the religion of graciousness: and graciousness is the equivalent of love. Does Christianity teach humanity? Well, culture instills modesty; and modesty is indistinguishable from humanity. Does Christianity hold up the ideal of purity? Well, culture sees a rare beauty in cleanness of life; and purity and cleanness are synonymous. Does Christianity preach the virtue of hope? Well, culture is a propagandist of optimism : and who can tell how optimism differs from hope? Suggest any virtue of Christianity, they say, and culture can offer its parallel. Honesty, prudence, temperance, fortitude, joyousness, gentleness of speech, dignity of throught, seemliness of action,—culture believes 16 CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND in all these nobilities not less than Christianity. In- deed, are not the professors of Christianity less delicate, refined, honorable, clean, considerate, and broad than the followers of culture? Why leave the higher plane of culture for the lower one of religi- ous practice and belief? But this is not all. Culture, besides being charming, is indifferent and sceptical. Now scepti- cism has a languid winsomeness, genteel poise and easy tolerance which allure. Cultured sceptics do not scoff at Christianity. Only the ignorant and vulgar do that. But scepticism is worse than scoff- ing; because it makes its victims immune from ar- gumentative approach. Ask a cultured sceptic, “Is Christianity a necessity?” He will answer: “I do not know.” “Has God spoken to men?” The answer: “I do not know.” “Is there any means of discovering this?” “I do not know.” “Do the arguments for Christianity prove?” “I do not know.” “Are you obliged in conscience to examine them and weigh their value?” “I do not know.” He doubts whether the Scriptures are authentic documents. Whether they have not been substantially tampered with in the course of centuries. Whether the authors of them are credible. Whether they were not deceived and did not deceive us. Whether Christ was true God. Whether genuine miracles were worked and real prophecies uttered in the name of God to con- firm Christ’s claim of Divine Sonship. He does not affirm the alternate judgment against Christianity. He does not deny it. He is not interested enough to affirm or deny. He is bored to death with the questioning. He yawns at these manifold proposals. They disturb his genteel self-sufficiency, they spoil the luxury of his passivity. It is hard to answer CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND 17 these questions. He declines the hardship and lolls back in sceptical ease on the beautiful softness of the couch of culture—an enemy, at least a passive enemy, of Christianity. Culture sins against Christ by scepticism. It sins against Him also by its pretended efficiency in the sphere of felicity. Culture claims to be able to make men happy. But its claim is an empty boast. For, from the beginning of time they have sought surcease from sorrow in the study of philo- sophic truth and in the pursuit of artistic beauty; but have not found it there. They have stretched out their hands to pluck these resplendent fruits and found them bitter to the taste. How many times have not we ourselves flung a book of literature aside, or shut our eyes to a masterpiece of paint- ing, or run away from classical music, because these embodiments of beauty could not fill the void in our heart; because they seemed to mock us in our quest of peace and joy? Francis Thompson in his “Hound of Heaven” has perhaps said the last wor& on the incapacity of natural and artistic loveliness to satisfy the soul. It is far from being evident that Aristotle and Plato in philosophy, Shakespeare and Dante in poetry, Mozart and Chopin in music found rest in their pursuits. Quite the contrary : the highest geniuses are generally the unhappiest men because they have sounded the depths of truth and beauty, in so far as this is possible to man, and found mud at the bottom. How then can we be so foolhardy as to think, with the whole cultured past crying out against us, that culture will be an ade- quate response to the longings of immortal spirits? And worse than this, culture panders to sin. I am aware, of course, of the claim that culture pre- 18 CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND serves one from sensuality. I grant that the deli- cacy, refinement, and fastidiousness which spring from intellectual and aesthetic studies engender a disinclination to indulge in the grosser forms of vice. But sensuality is not the only sin, nor the worst. Pride is infinitely worse. Now, pride grows apace with culture when the latter is separated from religion. A cultured man is more exposed than any other to the danger of thinking himself all sufficient for the exigencies of life; of minimizing religion, despising the vulgar multitude, contemplat- ing complacently his own exquisite mental propor- tions and of being cynical and sceptical about the elemental virtues: courage, fidelity, love, patrio- tism and faith. From his ethereal height of artis- tic or philosophic contemplation he looks down on these moral sublimities as superstitions of the gross, unregenerate masses. They are, he thinks, shib- boleths to conjure the crass herds of humanity with; but they have no intrinsic worth; they are only fictions, manufactured by priests and politicians for their own selfish ends. The cultured man for- sooth understands their game of make-believe, and will not be fooled by it. He starts out by professing an admiration for the fundamental virtues of hu- man conduct; but in the end his polished conceit leads him to condemn them. Moreover, while, as I admitted before, culture sometimes and to some extent wards off gross in- dulgence, it does not do so all the time and in all circumstances. Against the volcanic fires of pas- sion culture is helpless. Men (and women, too) of choicest sensibilities and nicest tastes will sacrifice the whole accoutrement of refinement acquired by the study of a life-time, when a masterful passion CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND 19 assails them. Science will seem flat and colorless to them, poetry will appear insipid, mental poise will assume the character of contemptible passivity, philosophy will look like dry and profitless moon- ing when a Romeo approaches with his magnetic personality or a Juliet with irresistible charms. And if the personal charms happen to be linked with vice, the devotee of culture will rise from his knees and flee his chill shrine, following the lead of the seducer wheresoever he goes. Indeed, one of the strangest paradoxes of life is that the cultured will go farther along the path of obscene grossness than common men. Their former artistic abstention from indulgence seems to have whetted their appe- tite for it; and they take an unnatural delight in defiling their lily mind, precisely because it had been so white, in devouring grossly, precisely because they had been accustomed to intellectual viands ; in revelling brazenly, precisely because they had been so proper and exquisite. You yourselves have known people, plain in body and untutored in mind, who yet were lovely in their every gesture and attitude of soul. And possibly you have come in contact with others, the quintessence of bodily and intellectual graces, who in spite of them, or rather on account of them, are slaves to the most abandoned impulses and tastes. The bulk of the Athenians rejected the doctrine of Paul. But Dionysius and Damaris accepted it b& cause it was beautiful and good, true and practical. Paul’s doctrine was beautiful and good. For it was the doctrine of a Divinity, essentially existent from all eternity, necessary, not a mere contingen- cy, all perfect, Creator of the myriad splendors of the world, infinitely removed in dignity from the 20 CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND gods of marble, silver, and gold of pagan mythology ; a God who by His essence, inmensity, power, and knowledge is everywhere, pervading all things, es- pecially the souls of men, “in whom we move and live and have our being who, as Conserver and Lover of everything, is very near us ; who made us sons by raising us to the supernatural life by grace ; who, when we had sinned through Adam and on our own account, decreed to be merciful and sent His Son, who lived, died, rose from the dead for us, and now reigns at the right hand of God, where, at the end of the world, He will pass judgment on men according to their deserts. In sheer beauty, goodness, and majesty, let alone truth and practical- ity, the doctrine of Paul was incomparably super- ior to the teachings of the Athenian Stoics and Epicureans, with their cultured self-sufficiency, scepticism, fatalism and quest of happiness in this life. And that is the first reason why Dionysius and Damaris accepted it. Paul's doctrine was true and evident. For the existence of the God whom he preached is plainly proven by the arguments of cause and effect, cosmic order, conscience, the concordant testimony of man- kind, and Revelation. And Revelation rests solidly on the foundation stones of miracles and prophecies while the historical truth of miracles and prophecies in favor of Christ's mission and Divinity is vouch- ed for by witnesses, namely, the Apostles, whose knowledge of the facts in question and whose vera- city in narrating them are as unimpeachable, from a natural point of view, even according to the test- imony of many rationalistic critics like Harnack, as the authority of the best narrators of profane history. Paul’s doctrine, therefore, in point of evi- CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND 21 dent truthfulness, threw into the shade the dim phil- osophic uncertainties of Stoics and Epicureans. Paul came with flaming words of inspiration straight from the lips of God. The Athenians came expressing tentatively mere man’s groping thoughts. Paul was a witness who had had personal exper- ience of a fact. The Athenians were only specula- tors who argued about the theory. Paul had a dead certainty to offer; yes, a dead and risen One! The stock-in-trade of the Athenians were shrewd guess- es, spasmodic glimpses of truth, wavering views, hollow plausibilities. Paul appealed to miracles; yes, and worked them. The last appeal of the Ath- enians were human opinions, unsubstantiated by Heaven. Paul spoke truths, seen clearly and strong- ly from God’s side. The Athenians spoke truths, or seeming truths, glimpsed confusedly from man’s side. Paul stood in the open spaces of the world un- der the sun of rational and revealed truth, seeing things distinctly and pointing to them. The Athen- ians carefully closed the shutters and absurdly drew the blinds of the chamber of their souls ; then peered futilely at the problems of life by the blink- ing and sputtering candlelight of their little in- tellects. In point of evident truth, not less than of goodness and beauty, the doctrine of Paul was in- comparably superior to that of the Athenian Stoics and Epicureans. That is the second reason why Dionysius and Damaris accepted it. In the third place, Paul’s doctrine fitted in with the needs of the world; it was practical. The fatal error of nearly all philosophers and artists has been that they have thought and acted as if truth and beauty were the be-all and the end-all of life : as if thoughts, not deeds ; as if intellect, not 22 CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND will; as if contemplation and self-expression, not wrestling with sordid realities; as if philosophic mooning, not prosaic suffering were the chief crit- eria of human worth; and as if life should be made to conform to their ideals, not is if their ideals should fit in with life. They forget that facts are brutal things, that no amount of theorizing is valid against a fact, that Utopias of speculation don’t wrork out, that in the world are sin, suffering, and passions; and that any system of life which shines serenely in the rarified atmosphere of abstract thinking, above and away from the reeking welter and pandemonium of concrete human action, is a toy for dreamers, not a weapon for fighters. That is the reason why their programs of righteousness, admirable enough in themselves, invariably have limped and broken down in practice. But Paul came preaching a doctrine of facts; suffering, sorrow, fighting, and conquering. This was far from being beautiful ; but it was true, good, and practical. Best of all, Paul came preaching a Conqueror of these things: Christ, a living Person; not a barren theorist; One who had done things, not one who had merely thought things; One who had practiced, then preached; not One who had preached the impracticable ; One who had tasted life in the laboratory of experience; not One who had woven a charming system of life in the looms of Apriorism; One with an appeal to the bulk of hu- manity, not One with an exclusive call to the in- tellectually elite. The doctrine of Paul in practical- ity as well as beauty, goodness, and truth was in- comparably superior to the teaching of the Athen- ians; and that is the third reason why Dionysius and Damaris accepted it. CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND 23 What happened to Paul that day in the Areopa- gus happens today. For the Church is Paul. And the world is the audience of Athens, and the compar- atively few followers of the Church are Dionysius and Damaris. For the Church preaches Christ, all aglow with the love of Him and of men. And the sceptical world, finished to the finger-tips, raises its eyebrows superciliously at her eloquence. But one here and one there is enthralled. And the Church is broken-hearted at the general iciness of men, but is comforted by the responsiveness of the few. And this vast continent is the Areopagus, and you are the Athenians, and I, as one of the teach- ing body of the Church, am preaching the same beautiful, good, true and practical doctrine that flowed from Paul’s lips. And it is necessary for you to prefer Christianity to culture or culture to Christianity. For this is the sublimity, but at the same time the terror, of Christianity, that it is not merely an historical fact, glorious but dead and gone, like for instance, the Roman Empire. It is, unlike the Roman Empire, a living reality, making its demands , on human intellects and wills as urgently now as it did when Christ, and Paul after Him, walked the earth. No man can avoid the choice, either for or against Christianity. Every man must either accept it or reject it. And the choice is the most momentous one possible, involving eternal destiny to the choos- er, for weal or for woe. Nor can one say: “I shall neither accept nor reject; but remain passive.” For, not accepting, sooner or later, in view of the clear evidences for Christianity, is tantamount to rejecting: remaining passive is the same as dis- owning. 24 CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND What then will you do? I answer briefly but completely: Do not subscribe to the empty culture of the Stoics arid Epicureans; nor of their follow- ers of today; but accept Paul, accept Christianity, accept Christ. CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND 25 THE AUTHENTIC FOUR (Address delivered by Rev. John A. McClorey, S. J., in the Catholic Hour, October 12, 1930) The four Gospels are one of the foundation stones of the Christian Faith. It is altogether seem- ly, therefore, that in a series of addresses on “Christianity and the Modern Mind” we should weigh the authenticity of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Authenticity means integrity, genuineness and authority. A document has integrity if it is substantially the same today as it was when it was written. I say, “substantially the same.” For incidental iden- tity in grammar, punctuation and spelling is not necessary for integrity. A document has genuineness if it was written by the persons to whom it is attributed;—or at least by their contemporaries. A document is authoritative if its authors knew what they were writing about and told us truly what they knew. In regard to the integrity of the Gospel nar- rative, two preparatory observations must be made. First, no original Gospel text written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John exists. The four originals were lost or destroyed centuries ago. Second, all theologians, Catholic and Protestant alike, admit that thousands of incidental changes in the Scrip- tural text, of the kind we have just referred to, have occurred in the course of centuries. Indeed, in view of the thousands of copies that have been made by hand from manuscript to manuscript, some of the manuscripts being almost illegible, it would 26 CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND have required a miracle to avoid all such mistakes : and we have no right to expect a miracle to preserve integrity in minutiae. What we claim for the four Gospels is sub- stantial completeness, i. e., integrity in faith, morals and the narrative of historical events; and the ar- gument is this: We have in our possession two manuscript copies of the four Gospels which date back to the fourth century. One of them is called the Vaticanus and the other the Sinaiticus. Now, our Gospels of today are substantially in accord with these. To appreciate the value of this argument, consider that the oldest copy of Caesar’s “Commen- taries on the Gallic War,” a document of undoubted integrity, goes back only to the ninth century, and the most ancient copy of Thucydides’ “History” is thirteen hundred years younger than the origin- al! Consistency requires, therefore, that rationalis- tic critics should admit the integrity of the Gospels if they subscribe to that of Caesar and Thucydides : or, if they deny the integrity of the Gospels, they should launch a more emphatic denial against Cae- sar and Thucydides. In the Fathers of the Church, a group of holy and learned men, ranging from the Second to the Ninth Century, the four Gospels are contained in the form of quotations which are in substantial harmony with our Gospels of today. Not a single word of protest was ever heard from the early Christians against any attempt to mutilate the sacred text, or negligence in preserv- ing it intact. But if meddlers had tampered with the text or if the careless had allowed it to deteriorate, their sin would have drawn down on their heads a storm of opposition from the fervent follower? of CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND 27 Christ. For the early Christians knew. the Gospels by heart, loved them and regarded their truths as the breath of their nostrils, and the foundation of their hopes for eternity. An example of their jeal- ous watchfulness was the decided opposition they made to St. Jerome’s translation, called the Vulgate, because, though it was correct and approved by the Pope, it was new. Again, in the fierce controversies waged by orthodox and heretics, if either party had changed the text to suit their purposes, the other would have cried out against the sacrilege. But though their de- bates were characterized by the greatest acrimony, the charge of falsification has never been heard. Finally, from the earliest days, copies of the Gospels were multiplied and translations were made. These were scattered throughout the world and read publicly in all the churches on Sundays and feast days. Now while a variation could have been introduced into one or other copy, it was impos- sible for changes to have been made in all of them, without being observed — especially identical changes. In view of all these facts, it is not remarkable that rationalistic critics of our day, at the head of whom is Harnack, are unanimous in judging that the integrity of the Gospels is beyond the shadow of doubt. The same men assert that the books in ques- tion are also genuine. Some few years ago it was the fashion among rationalistic critics to assign the writing of the Gospel story to a time centuries after the life of Christ. But all of them now admit that the Gospel of St. John was not composed after the year 100, while the Saint was still alive; and that 28 CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND the other three were not written after the year 50, —hence, within seventeen years of Our Saviour’s death. And the' rationalistic critics may well make this concession to the orthodox. For, a group of ecclesiastic writers, living before the year 200, chief among whom were Tertullian, Irenaeus, St. Justin Martyr, St. Ignatius of Antioch, Tatian and Papias, all say without hesitation that the Gospels are due to the work of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. That a Gospel could not have been forged in the life-time of the Apostles without protest from them is evident. That the early Christians, with all their jealous watchfulness over the deposit of faith, would not have accepted as genuine a spuri- ous gospel is also evident. So observant and criti- cal were they, that the Apocryphal Books, forged gospels, were rejected by them in due time; and the four genuine Gospels were admitted into the canon of inspired and historical books only after the closest scrutiny ! A far more important question is : Are the Gos- pels authoritative? Did their authors know what they were writing about and did they tell us truly what they knew ? Two of the Evangelists, Matthew and John, were disciples of Our Lord. Of the other two, Luke was a disciple of St. Paul, and Mark a disciple and follower of St. Peter and the other Apostles. Tf any- body was in a position to have an accurate knowledge of the events of Our Saviour’s life, surely they were. Moreover, hundreds of other men, as we know, not only from the tradition of the Church but also in part from secular history, saw and heard the things narrated by the Evangelists. Most of these CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND 29 men were enemies of Christ, who did not deny the miraculous facts, but attributed them to the devil and forbade the disciples to publish them. These witnesses were not visionaries, given to mysticism, imaginative extravagance, blind enthusiasm. Quite the contrary, they were plain, blunt men; indeed, doubting Thomases. The facts in question were re- cent, obvious, done in the light of day, in public, in the view of all Israel. The miracles were extra- ordinary. Hence the witnesses would not have mis- apprehended them through lack of attention. The miracles and the doctrines which they confirmed were subversive of the monoply of the Jewish re- ligion. Hence the Jews would not have made a mis- take about them through indifference and inadver- tence. This being the case, either the witnesses saw rightly what they thought they saw, or they were the victims of hallucination, or their eyes and ears were essentially, by nature, incapable of perceiv- ing obvious facts. In the circumstances which we have just rehearsed, hallucination is inadmissible. One or another individual could have been the vic- tim of hallucination. But it is too great a tax on our credulity to believe that hundreds of men, some of them Christ’s enemies, should have experienced the same trick of eyes and ears at the same time and have made the identical mistake in broad day- light, in public, in regard to plain and open facts. To attribute their mistake to an innate incapacity of eyes and ears to perceive obvious facts aright is to fall into universal scepticism. For, since all other men have the same five senses as those witnesses had and since we depend on our eyes and ears for our ideas of things, it follows that our ideas, be- 30 CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND ing possibly vitiated in the five sensuous sources, would be untrustworthy ; and thus scepticism, the absurd suicide of the mind, would be inevitable. Did they tell us truly what they knew? They did. For, first, there is every evidence of truthful- ness in their narrative; second, they had no motive to deceive; third, they had every motive not to de- ceive. The Evangelists either wrote in collusion with ci.'e another or they didn’t. In either case they told the truth. If they wrote in collusion, they told the truth. For, men conspiring to propagate a lie would have been careful not to admit into their narrative discrepancies, inconsistencies, and apparent contra- dictions lest they should lay themselves open to ac- cusations of inconsistency and even of mendacity from observant and critical enemies. But as a mat- ter of fact, the Evangelists admitted into their nar- rative discrepancies and apparent contradictions. True, these are only incidental, do not militate in the least against essential consistency, and can be easily explained. Nevertheless they are there ! Hence, if the Evangelists wrote in collusion with one an- other, they told the truth. If they did not write in collusion, they told the truth. For it would have been nothing less than miraculous if four mendacious men, writing inde- pendently of one another, about the same series of detailed events in the life of fictitious characters, had hit upon the same fiction, and then had suc- ceeded in being substantially consistent in their narrative. But the Evangelists, writing of the same series of detailed events in Our Saviour’s life, did portray the same Christ and did succeed in being substantially consistent in their narrative. There- CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND 31 fore, if they wrote independently of one another they did not lie. Futhermore, had they been deceivers with any hope of being believed and welcomed by the world, they would not have narrated almost unbelievable things ; they would not have proclaimed a most aus- tere system of morality which naturally was doom- ed to rejection by a proud and sensuous generation; they would not have told things redounding to their own discredit and to that of the principal charact- ers of their narrative. But as a matter of fact the Evangelists nar- rated almost unbelievable things: for example, miracles and mysteries. They proclaimed a most austere system of morality. They told about the execution of Christ, the betrayal of Judas, the denial of Peter, and the cowardice of the other Apostles;—occurrences which would discredit their message in the eyes of the world. Therefore, they were not deceivers. Other evidences of truthfulness in their nar- rative are these: They make no apology for asking people to accept miracles, mysteries, and a cruci- fied King. They do not write like men pleading a cause. There is no bombast in their style, there are no passionate appeals, no rhapsodies over the mir- acles, no comments ; only simple statements of facts. In the second place, the Evangelists had no motive to deceive. Surely not the motive of glori- fying Christ! For if Christ did not rise from the dead as He promised them, (and He didn’t rise if they Hed, for they said He rose,) they would have hated Him as an archdeceiver. Not the motive of ex- pecting a reward from God! For God, they knew, would punish them direfully if they promulgated a 32 CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND blasphemous lie. Not the motive of glory for them- selves! For the success of their lie would have been hopeless. They were ignorant and cowardly men despised by Romans and Greeks. Their story, on account of its mysteries, austere morality and hu- miliating facts, was naturally repulsive. Obstacles in the way,—the hatred of the Jews, the power of Rome, the culture of Greece, and the soddenness of the lower classes and barbarians—were, humanly speaking, insurmountable. And the restoration of a dead and decayed world to moral life at their hands would, they knew, have required a miracle. No, the motive of hoped for success could not have insti- gated their lie ! In the third place, they had every motive not to lie;—inevitable accusations of imposture from the Jews their enemies, who also were witnesses of wdiat they narrated, and would have triumphantly accused them of mendacity if they had lied; ridi- cule from the Greeks who would not countenance their absurd story; and imprisonment, suffering and death from the Romans who could not tolerate the demands of their crucified Leader. Now, men whose narrative bears every evi- dence of truthfulness, men with no motive to lie, with every motive not to lie, do not lie. For if they did, their lie would be attributable to natural in- born mendacity. But if men are liars by nature, the absurd consequences would follow, that all his- tory which is founded on the knowledge and truth- fulness of witnesses would be untrustworthy; so- ciety which rests on the mutual trust of men in each other’s word would be impossible; and God, Infinite Truth, the Author of man’s mendacious na- ture, would be responsible for its menacity. CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND 3S It is evident, therefore, that the Evangelists not only knew what they were writing about, but told us truly what they knew. If this evidence does not suffice, let me ask: Could a handful of uneducated men have conceived in their imagination the sublime fictitious charact- er of Christ, which, according to all authorities, surpasses every other noble character of fiction and history? To have done so would have proven them incomparably greater geniuses than Dante and Shakespeare. Parker says: “Only a Nev/ton could have imagined the character of Christ.” Rous- seau says: “For these ignorant men to have exco- gitated the fiction of Christ would have been a greater mircle than that Christ should have existed in reality.” Could they have thought of and formu- lated the doctrines of Christianity, in comparison with which the philosophic system of the sages of antiquity pale ? And where did they get their exquis- itely simple and simply exquisite style, the admir- ation of the ages, if not from on high? Furthermore, could a religion founded on a lie have produced such fruits of civilization and sanc- tity as have been due to Christianity? Could it have persevered triumphantly through ages as Christian- ity has done? Could a religion founded on a lie have done all this despite the mysteriousness of its doc- trine, the austerity of its morality, the inefficiency of its promoters, the unspeakable pagan immorality and pride it had to encounter and the brilliant and powerful opponents who have challenged it at every step of its progress through the world ? The man who would answer “yes” to these questions would be a more astounding miracle of credulity than any of Christ’s miracles which his 34 CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND incredulity will not allow him to accept. It is no wonder, then, that modern rationalists are unanimous in admitting that the Gospels are sober history and that their authority is greater than that of any secular history of ancient times. Catholics have also the authority of the Church. For the Church has always taught that the authen- ticity of the four Gospels cannot be questioned. Moreover, the Providence of God is at stake. For surely it pertains to His Providence to preserve men from necessarily falling into grave error. But the evidence of the four Gospels is so clear that a reasonable man, after studying them thoroughly, is morally obliged to accept them. Hence, either there is no good God in Heaven, directing the des- tinies of men and saving them from necessarily fall- ing into grave error; or, (if such a God does exist) the four Gospels are true ! CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND 35 RELIGION, SCIENCE AND ART (Address delivered by Rev. John A. McClorey, S. J., in the Catholic Hour, October 19, 1930) Sciolists are half-educated people who know just enough not to know how little they know; who do not discover or originate anything themselves, but learn their lessons from others, and do not learn them well; who assent to a proposition with- out perceiving the reason for it ; who mistake mere theories for proven principles; who subscribe to a scientific statement in the bulk, leaving out of con- sideration qualifications, limitations, and explana- tions of it by its original proponent ; and who are al- lured by a scientist’s literary style into accepting, without weighing, its doctrinal content. Science is novel; revelation is old. Science ori- ginates with hypothesis, postulating theory before facts. Revelation postulates the fact of God’s exis- tence and proceeds from fact to theory, inquiring not into the truth of God’s statements but into the fact of His utterance. Science asks: What phe- nomena do our senses reveal to us and how does our reason explain them ? Revelation asks : Did God speak to us? If so, what did He say? Science re- veals the orde1* and harmony in physical nature; revelation discovers the order and harmony in spir- itual and divine things. Science depends on the evi- dence of the senses; revelation depends upon the evidence of God’s spoken word. Science is an appeal to human reason; revelation is an appeal to divine authority. Science seems to give a certain latitude to the inquiry of the mind; revelation seems to place restrictions on the free use of reason. Science 36 CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND seems clever and bold; revelation is made to ap- pear commonplace and dull. Now novelty, liberty, cleverness, boldness, and sensible phenomena have an engrossing appeal for the superficial; wheras antiquity, intellectual and moral constraint, assent without the evidence of the senses, and belief founded on authority repel them. Out of these attractions and aversions grow the sciolists. They look like formidable enemies of revelation, but in reality they are a negligible quan- tity. Great is the power of propaganda ! Through its instrumentality the persuasion has become quite common that science and revelation cannot be recon- ciled. Yet, as a matter of fact, by far the greater number of genuine scientists have been believers in revelation. The two Bacons, Copernicus, Kepler, Kircher, Newton, Harvey, Descartes, Ampere, Vol- ta, Mendel, Lord Kelvin, Clarke-Maxwell, Faraday, Pasteur—these are a few of the great believing scientists who occur to the mind at once. Can any group of non-believing great scientists be compared with these? I shall also mention great names in philosophy and the arts, because brains in every sphere of ac- tivity are an argument for or against revelation. The gigantic intellects of the patristic age — Augustine, Ambrose, Jerome, Athanasius, Leo, Ba- sil, Chrysostom and Nazianzen—were steeped in devotion to Christianity. Nearly all thinkers of the Middle Ages, with Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Albertus Magnus, and Bonaventure at their head, were holy as well as learned men. In poetry, Shake- speare, Dante, Milton, Tasso, Calderon, Corneille, and Racine; in sculpture and painting, Michael An- CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND 37 gelo, Raphael, Murillo, and Titian; in music, Mo- zart, Chopin and Gounod ; in architecture, the build- ers of the Gothic cathedrals; in eloquence, Bossuet, Massillon, Lacordaire, Burke, Chatham, Pitt, Fox and Webster. We do not subscribe to the statistical argument nor take satisfaction in merely counting heads, but we do maintain that it is a fact that great scientists and great intellectual leaders in every age have found no difficulty in reconciling their scientific knowledge with their faith in re- vealed truth. This fact is a valid argument against those who say that the two are inherently incom- patible. It is amusing, therefore, but at the same time exasperating, to hear shallow sciolists prate about the essential opposition between intellectuality and Christianity, about the “historical fact” of the utter divorce between the two, and in particular about the darkness of the Middle Ages. They wave aside Thomas Aquinas and his gigantic compeers with an easy smile. Generally speaking, it is not the found- ers of scientific systems who oppose religion; but their camp-followers. How little Darwin claimed as scientifically proven; but, how much is claimed by the Lilliputian hangers-on of Darwinism! And in some universities where the doctrines of big men are retailed by little professors—it is there we find the hosts of anti-Christian propagandists. Hereti- cal views are always novel and striking, offering to rhetorical exponents of so-called science a fine opportunity for declamatory display and brilliant brazenness. And so, callow youths and maidens, caught by the glamor of intellectual rebelliousness and intoxicated with the thrill of cutting port-moor- ings and sailing into uncharted seas, exult. They 38 CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND drink, but not deeply, of the Pierian spring. They get the ends, edges and shreds of ideas, and think forsooth that they are at the center and heart of truth. They mistake theories for certain principles; plausibilities for incontrovertible facts ; enthusiastic interest for solid advance in study; and unbound- ed assurance for real certainty. They forget that the hall-mark of genuine science always has been modesty, hesitancy, circumspection, exquisite care- fulness, slow assent, respect for alternate views, and humility. Flamboyancy, gaudiness, theatric osten- tation, egotism and conceit have always been the fellows of superficiality. But of this the camp-fol- lowers are not aware. And so the new-born Solomons of the day look down from their heights upon the belittled mountain of Aquinas. I have sometimes wondered . how many of the dogmatic iconoclasts of medieval- ism ever saw a tome of Aquinas; how many of them could decipher the contents of the title-page; could read the Latin text, and if they could, could understand what they read; and if they could un- derstand it piecemeal, could comprehend the gigan- tic proportions of the whole system of philosophy and theology which St. Thomas elaborated with such masterful genius. But have not some great scientists been in- imical to revelation and faith? Yes. Their opposi- tion, however, can be easily explained. They did not know the evidence of religion because they did not study them aright ; and they did not study them aright because in their opinion the study was un- interesting or too difficult or not worth the effort or not obligatory in conscience, or because the ques- tion of religion is insoluble anyhow. Moreover, CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND 39 since most of their time was spent in their favorite speciality, they had little or no energy left for re- ligious inquiry. The knowledge of religion draws in its wake a series of grave obligations which they wished to decline. Learning from authority lacks the natural appeal of learning by experiment. The mysteries of religion appear to them to be absurdi- ties. They chose to ponder objections to religion without weighing its positive arguments. Though well fitted for physical sciences they were desti- tute of mental equipment for theology. While they demanded the best of brains and training for phy- sics, chemistry and the other experimental sciences, they imagined that anyone without theological ed- ucation could essay with impunity the far more difficult field of religious thought. In some cases they mistook a mutilation of religion for religion itself ; and rightly objecting to the former, wrongly opposed the latter. Or, misunderstanding the teach- ings of the Church, they made her suffer by their opposition on account of their error of judgment. These or some other such reasons must explain their opposition to revelation and faith. Their op- position could not have#been founded on truth. For science and revelation alike come from God, the Infinite Truth; they must both be true, and truth cannot be opposed to truth. The reason of the ap- parent conflict between science and faith is clearly pointed out in the Decree of the Council of the Vatican: “There never can be any real discrepancy between faith and reason, since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind; and God cannot deny Himself, nor can truth ever contra- dict truth. The false appearance of such a contra- 40 CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND diction is namely due, either to the dogmas of faith not having been clearly understood and expounded according to the mind of the Church, or to the in- ventions of opinion having been taken for the ver- dicts of reason.” We ought not to place too much confidence in the judgment of scientists on religious truth. They are excellent in their own line of endeavor, but often times lamentably ignorant of the Faith. Who would take the opinion of a medical man on fine points of law; or of a lawyer in regard to intricate ques- tions of medicine? Why should Edison in America or any other scientist anywhere else be taken as an authority in theology? Let the cobbler stick to his last. Scientists in their particular field contract the habit of assenting to propositions on internal evi- dence only, which is right. Then wrongly, they car- ry their habit with them into the field of religion, where not evidence of the senses but the authorita- tive statement of God is the motive of assent. Every specialty tends to narrow the mind. Scientists are specialists. Their minds, unless en- larged by liberal studies and religion, are apt to run in a groove. Like a trolley-car they are confined, in their mental progress, by the narrow rigidity of tracks. If they depart from these, ruin results. They lack versatility. Unlike automobiles, they are not safe on many roads of inquiry, and in many paths of truth. Their findings in part are only theories; and something more than a theory is required to overthrow the historical fact of the living Christ and His miracles. They argue a priori against re- ligion, instead of weighing it, as they ought to do, CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND 41 in the light of the historical evidence on which it rests. Rationalistic scientists have enjoyed a vogue during the past century because they have propos- ed new things, opened the way to greater latitude of morals and so-called freedom of thought, and flour- ished a style that captivates the impressionable. Huxley and Tyndall were stylists as well as scien- tists. Even the ignorant Ingersoll could hold an audience because he cauld turn a phrase, and H. G. Wells’ “Outline of History” would not be read but for its style. But we must remember that new things are not always true things, that “greater latitude of morals” may be a euphemism for rank immorality, that “greater freedom of thought” may be a nice name for license of thought, and that a fine style is no guarantee of the truth and solidity of the doctrine which it reveals—and sometimes insidiously conceals. Besides these scientific objections to revelation there are two more which may be called artistic. Anything in excess offends the aesthetic sense. But to some artistic minds, revelation and especially the Incarnation seem to be too good and beautiful to be true; to others they appear too repulsive to be true. The first objection may be stated thus : The In- carnation is a gilded fairy tale, a divine romance, a majestic epic; it is too good and beautiful to be true; things like that simply do not happen in life. Do not ask us to accept It as a fact. # But fact is stranger than fiction. If this ob- jector went a step farther he should logically deny the fact of the physical world. For the physical world is an eye-opening wonder, a poet’s dream. 42 CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND Alas ! we get used to it, custom films our eyes with the cataracts of disillusionment, and the glory disap- pears. But I am convinced that if a man came into life suddenly in the full possession of his powers, he would be smitten with rapture at the first sight of the universe, and would exclaim: “The sun, the stars, the sky, mountains, oceans, flowers, fra- grances, colors, sounds, four-footed things, men with two eyes, with an intellect and free will. Im- possible! This is a unique extravaganza, a poet's majestic imagining! I am dreaming! This cannot be true." But we know that it is true ; and we know from “The Authentic Four" that the Incarnation is a fact, against which a 'priori speculation cannot avail. Besides, aside from the testimony of “The Authentic Four," antecedent presumption is in fa- vor of the Incarnation, though at first sight it seems to be against It. For since God is infinite goodness, and since goodness is essentially diffu- sive of itself, therefore God tends, with an infin- ite impulse of generosity, to expand to an infinite extent—to give nothing less than Himself. To those who think meanly of God, the Incarnation seems impossible. To those who think grandly and there- fore rightly of God the Incarnation appears to be the only thing quite worthy of Him. Then, for the sake of those extreme realists who reject the Incarnation because it is so glorious- ly poetical, let me hasten to state that, paradoxi- cally enough, the Incarnation involves hardships for us, as it did for Christ, which keep our feet firmly fixed on the ground of prosaic reality. The second objection: The Incarnation is too repulsive to be true. It is the economy of the Cross ; CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND 43 but for human beings the Cross is impossible. How could God expect to win men with the Cross? But there is no use in arguing against a fact; and the fact of the Incarnation, as we know It from “The Authentic Four,” is the Cross. Besides, men have accepted the cross. Moreover, in another sense, the cross is the only economy of grace quite worthy of God. Mere man would have used the panoply of nature to succeed with ; mere man would have courted the arms of Rome and the culture of Greece as allies; but it became a God to fly in the face of the whole paraphernalia of worldly powder and to employ means which, humanly speaking, wTere infallibly destined to fail. Again, since sin is due to earthly power, wealth and pleasure misused, the wisdom of embracing earthly ignominy, poverty and pain for the regen- eration of the race becomes evident. Then, to the bulk of humanity, poor, miserable and bleeding, a God on a cross is more appealing than a God on a throne. Finally, the cross is not incompatible with the full use of man’s best natural powers, provided they are employed not for self but for God and his neigh- bor. He who clings to power will misuse it ; he who is willing to yield it, can be trusted to use it aright. Remember the old paradox of Christianity: Lose yourself and you will find yourself; die and you will live; give and you will receive; sacrifice the world for Christ’s sake and you will be in the best position to employ it with moderation. Thus Christ did; and thus we, with God’s help, in our own poor wray can do. 44 CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND THE NECESSITY OF RELIGION (Address delivered by Rev. John A. McClorey, S. J., in the Catholic Hour, October 26, 1930) Religion has fallen into desuetude. The sensu- ous reject it because it is a curb to their passions. So-called intellectuals despise it because its eviden- ces have broken, so they think, beneath the pres- sure of modern science. Modernists drop it because its antique dogmas are out of joint with the times. Utilitarians decline it because it is not practical enough for the business world. Free-thinkers sever themselves from it because it puts a brake on intel- lectual independence. Numbers of sincere men have given it up in despair because it seems to be a shat- tered remnant of what it used to be. They look for union and find it not. They listen for the Gospel and hear secular discourses. They long for dynamic apostles, and are chilled by clerics, genteel but in- effectual. They are hungry for the meat of truth, and are served with the unsubstantial breakfast foods of personal speculation, private opinion, and political views. This, I believe, is a fair statement of the present-day attitude of multitudes toward religion and the Church. There was a time when religion was a driving force in the world. Men and women laid down their lives for it, sacrificed fortunes for it, spread it en- thusiastically, fought for it, drank it in with their mothers’ milk, saturated their minds and hearts with it, studied it deeply, knew its structure from cellar to roof, were comforted, warmed, and strengthened by it, heard its voice with respect and ate its truths as their daily bread. However much modernists be out of sympathy with the old-time CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND 45 followers of religion, they cannot but admire apos- tolic men who, like St. Paul, St. Patrick, St. Francis Xavier, went to the earth’s ends in poverty and hunger, with a flame in their hearts and a light in their eyes, gladly leaving home and native land to preach the faith; men of the desert, who, like St. Anthony, lived in solitude with religion as with a bride; men of doctrine, who, like Sts. John Chry- sostom, Nazianzen, and Ambrose, spent the best energies of their mighty intellects and gifted tongues to expound religion to the people and to defend it against its enemies; men and women of martyr caliber, who, like Lawrence, Sebastian, Agnes and Cecilia of Rome, like the Irish Plunkett, and the English Campion, Fisher and Thomas More, met death with a laugh for religion’s sake. Through the centuries thousands of such men and women have lived^and died. Their devotion is a strong argument for religion. For they were not stupid nor effemin- ate nor unlearned nor fanatical nor out of touch with the world nor naturally callous to the attrac- tions of earth. But they were normal men, red- blooded and grey-brained, convivial, fighters, think- ers, lovers of freedom; just as representative of genuine manhood and womanhood as we are today. Oh, how the sceptical thinking of modernists pales in comparison with their doings! One big deed is better than a thousand thoughts. For the chief cri- terion of value is not speculation, but action and sac- rifice. The crimsoned, gold-flicked track of their passing was like the effulgence of the setting sun ; while the feeble vacillation and unproved negations of doubting Thomases are as watery as the dead, cold moon. Is religion a failure? That is a question we 46 CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND have heard frequently enough. We shall answer it. But before doing so, we should like to ask a ques- tion of our own: Is not irreligion a failure? Irreli- gion has been the boast of our day. The pre-war civilization of Europe was emphatically irreligious. Modern science scoffed at religion, and modern science was the idol of Europe. Darwin, Huxley, Spencer in England; Renan in France, Kant and Marx in Germany were the icons of the century, — and they were rationalists. Before them the French Encyclopedists ridiculed religion, and they are in honor even yet. Irreligious science was going to re- new the face of the earth, cleanse the world of sup- erstition, and allow men to think for themselves, — and it has made a mess of things. Men did think for themselves, formulated their own rules of con- duct and lived according to their own sweet wills. They boasted that they had arrived at the acme of civilization, that cavemen had finally become sup- ermen, that men whose trammeled reason had been unchained would use their reason to settle their differences, that war was a relic of the supersti- tious past. And the great war came; Mars laughed at Athene, brute force clubbed reason, and blood instead of brains had to settle the argument. It is just possible, of course, that the sequence between the period of irreligion and the period of the war was a mere coincidence, but it looks for all the world like a case of cause and effect. At any rate, irreli- gion did not save us from the war, and therefore it lies open to the charge of failure. Even its most enthusiastic defenders have been shaken in their faith—their faith in infidelity. They lie prostrate amid the charred ruins of a world,—sceptical of their scepticism. They pulled down the pillars of religion CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND 47 with Samsonian rage, and now grovel beneath the fallen superstructure of civilization, with plenty of time to meditate on their foolhardiness. And has not irreligion been directly responsi- ble for the war and the subsequent economic chaos of today? Religion with its Creed puts graphically before the mind supernatural truths which uplift. Irreligion obliterates these truths. Religion, with its Ten Commandments, emphasized the evil, offen- siveness, guilt and punitive deserts of sin. Irreli- gion removes the emphasis. Religion, through pray- er and the Sacraments, enriches souls with help- ful grace. Irreligion closes the channels of grace. Religion sets before us the heroic proportions, al- luring graciousness, and thrilling example of Christ. Irreligion erases Christ from the tablets of our memory, nullifies the force of hero worship with regard to Him and leaves us cold and untouched by His lessons of morality. Moreover, Jrreligion dulls the appeal of historic Christianity, ^abolishes the calendar of martyrs and saints, pulls down Heaven out of the sky, cabins us in with the hori- zon of earth, denies to broken-hearted humanity the hope of immortality, and places us only a degree or two above the level of the beast which dies, and in dying, perishes utterly. Take religion from a man and place him on the plane of mere nature, and forthwith he wall not see clearly what he ought to do, nor feel strong- ly the desire of doing what he ought. The sublimest intellects of antiquity, Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero, after the most exhaustive study of the natural code of morality, did not know at all some of the funda- mental laws of life, saw other laws only dimly, and did not observe the few which they clearly knew. 48 CHRISTIANITY AND THE MODERN MIND What must have been the darkness and weakness of the mass of humanity, since these outstanding men were so pitifully blind and ineffectual? Hu- manity needed religion for its illumination and strength; we need it today and are starving our need by an irreligious life. Christ healed the world. Like the Good Samaritan, He found man prostrate, wounded and all but dead on the road of life. He stooped over him, pitied him, poured oil into his wounds and put him on his feet again. True, the Christian era has not been altogether a heaven on earth; but in comparison with pagan days it has been a blessed time. One of the most plausible arguments against the necessary of religion for the purposes of life is that human nature is sufficient unto itself. We hear men say: “Human nature is adequate for the attainment of its own ends,—without supernatur- al aid. R^son is king in the domain of man and is capable ot ruling well, without religion. A normal government has within itself all the means requis- ite for fulfilling the purpose of government. If an automobile is well built, it works. Why, in like man- ner, cannot human nature work all right by its own intrinsic power? Why introduce religion from outside to assist it?” If human nature were in a normal state, all this would be true. But if it is subnormal all this is false. If a man's constitution is subnormal through sickness, it