Pius X, 1903-1914

really divined the future; whether He truly rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, agnostic science will give a denial, faith an affirmation; yet as a result of this there will be no conflict between the two. For one, addressing philosophers as a philosopher, namely, contemplating Christ only according to historical reality, will deny; the other, speaking as a believer with believers, viewing the life of Christ as it is lived again by the faith and in the faith, will affirm.

2085. A great mistake, however, is made as a result of this by anyone who thinks that he can believe that faith and science are subject to each other in no way at all. For, as regards science he does indeed think rightly and truly; but it is otherwise with faith, which must be said to be subject to science not only on one, but on three grounds. For, first, we must observe that in any religious fact, after the divine reality has been taken away, and whatever experience he who believes has of it, all other things, especially religious formulae, do not pass beyond the confines of phenomena, and so fall under science. By all means let it be permitted the believer, if he wills, to go out of the world, yet as long as he remains in it, whether he likes it or not, he will never escape the laws, the observations, the judgments of science and history.—Furthermore, although it is said that God is the object of faith alone, this is to be granted with regard to the divine reality, but not with regard to the idea of God. For this is subject to science, which, while it philosophizes in the logical order, as they say, attains also what is absolute and ideal. Therefore, philosophy or science has the right to learn about the idea of God, and to direct it in its evolution, and, if anything extraneous enters it, to correct it. Hence the axiom of the modernists: Religious evolution should be reconciled with the moral and the intellectual, that is, as one teaches whom they follow as a master, it should be subject to them.—Finally it happens that God does not suffer duality within Himself, and so the believer is urged on by an innermost force so to harmonize faith with science that it never disagrees with the general idea which science sets forth about the entire universe. Thus, then, is it effected that science is entirely freed from faith, that faith on the other hand, however much it is proclaimed to be extraneous to science, is subject to it.—All this, Venerable Brethren, is contrary to what Pius IX, Our predecessor, handed down teaching: "It is the duty of philosophy, in those matters which pertain to religion, not to dominate but to serve, not to prescribe what is to be believed, but to embrace what is to be believed with reasonable obedience, and not to examine the depths of the mysteries of God, but to revere them piously and humbly.¹ The modernists completely invert the matter; so what Our predecessor, Gregory IX, similarly wrote about certain theologians of his age can be applied to these: "Some among