SOME apology may perhaps be needed to a Catholic audience for discussing
the subject of Modernism at all. It might be thought that it is a topic
which might well be let alone -- let severely alone -- in an English
Catholic pulpit. The system that has come to be known as Modernism is so
largely a matter of metaphysical speculation that it hardly commends
itself to the average English intelligence. We flatter ourselves as a
race on being practical. We like to be practical in our religion as in
other things, and speculative
theories on religious subjects possess little charm for our minds and
exercise little influence on our beliefs and conduct. It might be
thought, then, that Modernism presents little danger to English
Catholics. There is some truth in this view if we regard only the actual
tenets of Modernism. No doubt we Englishmen are plain men in our habits
of thinking, and to plain men much of the teaching of Modernism is
simply bewildering. But underlying the doctrines of Modernism there is
the spirit of Modernism. The doctrines of Modernism may not be a danger
to us, the spirit of Modernism may. And it cannot be denied, I think,
that the spirit of Modernism is abroad at the present time. It infects
much of the thought and literature of the day. Catholics need then to be
put on their guard against it, and these lectures will have fulfilled
their purpose if they serve to warn Catholics against a real danger to
their faith. It may be said with truth that the term
Modernism stands not so much for a cut-and-dried system ready-made as
for a system in the making. It represents a spirit, a tendency, a method
or process of contemporary thought. As such, it is not confined to
religion alone. The name Modernism, it has been pointed out,{1}
bears the same relation to what is modern that liberalism bears to what
is liberal, or militarism to what is military, or capitalism to
capital, and appropriately enough describes the spirit which exalts the
modern at the expense of antiquity, which extols the new because it is
new, and depreciates the old because it is old, and which, so far, is a
revolt of the present against the past. It does not need any very close
observation to perceive that spirit at work at the present day in other
spheres besides that of religion, and in other forms of religion besides
the Catholic. Its effect on Catholicity is all we are concerned with.
Even when its scope is thus restricted, Modernism is an elusive thing to
deal with. For Modernists differ so much among themselves that it is
difficult to pin them down to one coherent set of opinions. But the
general drift of Modernism in its bearing upon Catholicity is
unmistakable. Its object is quite clear and open and avowed. That object
is not ostensibly to set up a brand-new form of Catholicity, but to
reconstruct the old on new lines. Its object, as Modernists are fond of
saying, is to re-adjust Catholicity to the mentality of the age, to
reinterpret Catholicity in terms of modern thought. That sounds at first
a perfectly legitimate proposal. But the question is, what modern
thought? There is modern thought and modern thought. There is modern
thought which is sound, and modern thought which is, to say the least,
unsound. So, when it is proposed to adapt Catholicity to modern thought,
it is of some importance to inquire what
modern thought is meant. Modern thought is itself a vague term. For our
present purpose we may take it to mean the opinions upon serious
subjects current among thinking people at the present day, the
prevailing mental outlook as regards such subjects, the modern point of
view. Now, if there be, as the term modern thought implies there is,
some tone or temper of mind upon such subjects peculiar to the present
time, if there be a distinct wave of thought passing over our own sage,
it must have had some definite origin, and it ought to be possible to
trace it to its source. To try to do so will help us the better to
determine what value to attach to what is vaguely called modern thought.
You know what usually happens before a particular set of views or
opinions gains ground and spreads so widely as to help to mould the
thought of the day. What commonly happens is something like this. Some
man of genius, student, thinker,
scholar, philosopher, scientist -- call him what you please -- works out
some theory in the privacy of his study or laboratory, and then gives
it to the world. At first perhaps it is understood and appreciated only
by the few, his fellow-workers in the same field of knowledge. They
recognise its merit at once. They are quick to see its bearings and
applications. They help to make it known. It was some scientific or
philosophical theory to begin with, but it comes to be translated from
technical into popular language; it is made easy of popular access.
Through the facilities which modern civilisation affords in such
abundance, through the newspaper and periodical Press, through such
agencies as free libraries, popular lectures, working men's institutes,
continuation classes, and the rest, it filters down gradually through
the strata of which society is composed. It is popularised. It was at
first the creation of one brain, and then the possession of the few. Now
it is the property of the
many; it is common property. It has passed from the study into the
street; it has become part of the thought and speech of the crowd.
Henceforth it belongs to modern thought, though many of those whose
minds it has helped to form hardly know the name of a Copernicus, or a
Galileo, or a Kepler, or a Newton, or a Faraday, or a Harvey, to whom
they owe it. What has come to be modern thought may be the product of
the brain of one man.
VATICAN II is MODERNISM....
If this be true of the material of thought, of the things that men think
about, it may be equally true of the process of thought itself, of
habits and modes of thought. And when this is borne in mind it does not
seem far-fetched to say that the modern way of thinking about the deeper
problems of life is largely influenced by one thinker who lived and
taught a hundred years ago. If you ask those most likely to know whom
they consider to be the one man who has left the deepest impress upon
serious
modern thought, nine out of every ten so asked will probably answer,
Immanuel Kant. The tenth might say Hegel. But Hegel, it must be
remembered, derived his inspiration from Kant. Kant's was the master
mind. "Thinking men to-day," says Auguste Sabatier, "may be divided into
two classes: those who go back beyond Kant and those who have received,
as it were, their philosophic initiation and baptism from his
Critique."{2}
And, as a matter of fact, Kant's influence is clearly discernible in
modern thought. Kant is a rationalist, and modern thought is largely
rationalistic. Kant, though he does not deny the supernatural, puts it
outside the field of knowledge, and modern thought is agnostic, so far
as the supernatural is concerned. Kant makes religion a matter of
inward, personal experience, independent of any external authority, and
modern thought is impatient of authority. Of course, the human mind,
whether
ancient or modern, has a natural tendency in these directions,
irrespective of the teaching of Kant, or of anyone else; but that only
makes it a more congenial soil for the reception and fertilisation of
Kantian ideas. And, when these ideas spread from the learned to the
simple and are diffused and popularised in the manner just indicated,
they are of the very kind to shape and fashion the modern mind already
predisposed in their favour. Moreover, they give some sort of scientific
and philosophic sanction to certain natural leanings of the human mind,
and impart to them an air of respectability they might not otherwise
possess. And the result is modern thought, modern thought coloured by
the philosophy of Kant, even in the case of many who have never studied
philosophy, and perhaps have never heard Kant's name. The Catholic
Church is far-seeing in watching with vigilance the development not only
of theological, but also of philosophical opinions. Philosophy, after
all,
is only the pursuit of the first principles of knowledge. If the first
principles are unsound, the whole field of knowledge, sacred and
profane, is rendered insecure, not for the philosopher only, but also
for the man in the street.
When there is question, then, of interpreting Catholicity in terms of
modern thought, we must be on our guard. Modern thought, it has been
said, thanks in great measure to Kant, is largely rationalistic. It is a
difficult matter to interpret Catholicity in terms of rationalism.
Modernism has the hardihood to attempt the task. And herein lies its
chief danger. If a religious system is frankly and exclusively
rationalistic, ordinary religious-minded men will not give it a moment's
consideration. But if it claims to teach the old doctrines, while
accepting all the results of modern criticism and research, thus
harmonising the old and the new; if it maintains that, to achieve this
end, all that is required is not the destruction but the
reinterpretation of the old
formulas of belief, it is more likely to ensnare the thoughtful among
religious people. And if, moreover, while doing this, it claims to make
religion more spiritual, more personal, by making it more a matter of
inward spiritual experience, by developing its mystical side, it is more
likely to ensnare the devout.
TRUE Traditionalists Reject Vatican II; avoid pseudo traditionalism which is compromise
But the question is, can it be done? That Catholicity can be reconciled
with all that is sound in modern thought cannot be doubted. But the
question is, can it be reconciled with that form of modern thought
which is imbued with the teaching of Kant, and consequently tainted with
rationalism? That such is the question at issue will appear more
plainly as we proceed. We said at the beginning that the danger of
Modernism lies not so much in its actual teaching as in its spirit. The
spirit of Modernism, we shall have to show, is the rationalistic spirit
of Kant. But Modernism is not only an attempt
to accommodate Catholicity to modern thought as infected with Kant's
spirit. It is an attempt to accommodate Catholicity to Kant's very
system. For Modernism is based on Kant's system of philosophy.
Pseudo Traditionalism is another novelty of the hour. It holds erroneously to the notion that it was just the "spirit of the Council" that was bad... or "liberal media" just perverts Vatican II. No, Vatican II was written by modernists and liberals it is a heretical/schismatic council...
And here may I crave your indulgence while I say just so much about the
philosophy of Kant as is necessary to render our subject intelligible.
This is neither the time nor place to discuss Kant's philosophy as a
whole. All we are concerned with is Kant's theory of knowledge. And, for
obvious reasons, that can be dealt with only in brief and summary
fashion. But that will suffice to show its bearing on our subject. Kant,
then, in his "Critique of Pure Reason," lays down this principle, that
the human mind cannot have true knowledge of anything but the data of
sense experience. In other words, what our senses have no direct
experience of, that our mind cannot know. But our senses have direct
experience of objects of sense alone, of what we see, and hear, and
touch, and taste,
and smell. Therefore, these phenomena, as Kant would call them, are all
we can know. They, and they alone, are the raw material of knowledge, to
be shaped and fashioned into the finished product of knowledge by the
action of the senses and the mind, through the medium of "sense forms"
and "mind forms," an action that is purely subjective, that is to say,
due to the machinery of the mind itself. Phenomena, appearances, then,
according to Kant, are all we know. But are appearances all there is? Is
there no reality underneath the appearances? There may be, Kant would
say. There may be beneath the phenomena what he calls a "noumenon," a
thing in itself. And the human mind may surmise its existence. Nay, the
mind may go further. It may prompt a man to act for all practical
purposes as if that thing did really exist. The mind may hold its
existence as a "regulative principle of conduct," as a "practical
postulate of reason." But, for all that, the mind
cannot know its existence. Why not? Because that thing, that reality, is
not matter of the experience of the senses. And Kant's theory of
knowledge limits rigidly knowledge properly so-called to the data of
sense experience. Knowledge. cannot transcend experience, is Kant's
dictum. And therefore knowledge cannot penetrate to things. Knowledge of
phenomena does not help it to do so. For that knowledge neither proves
the existence nor manifests the nature of the thing in itself. It is
only the product of the machinery of our own mind.
Now, a theory like this seems at first sight repugnant to common sense.
For example, I am standing on the platform of a railway station and an
express runs through. To say that I know nothing about the train but
what meets the senses -- the rush of air, or of steam, the roar, the
bustle, the speed, the flash of the lights, the rattle of the cars on
the metals, the whistle of the engine -- seems at first
preposterous. But that is hardly a fair and adequate presentment of
Kant's theory. That theory is not so easily disposed of. It would be a
mistake, a mistake sometimes made, I think, by Catholic opponents of
Kant, to travesty Kant's system and then hold it up to ridicule. It is
easy to ridicule it, but it needs to be met. Kant was a serious thinker,
and, notwithstanding his errors, he was a deep and original thinker.
And here we must remember he is occupied with a problem which has
baffled some of the acutest intellects the world has ever seen, the
problem of what we know and how we know it. That is a question that
cannot be settled off-hand. We are not presuming to settle it now. We
are only concerned to point out a mistake made by Kant in dealing with
it. In working out his theory of cognition, Kant took this as his
starting-point: that the laws by which the human mind works render it
incapable of knowing with true intellectual knowledge anything beyond
the data of sense
experience. That was a false start and it vitiated Kant's whole system.
In contra-distinction to Kant's philosophy there is what we may call
Catholic philosophy. Catholic philosophy agrees with Kant in saying that
knowledge must have sense experience for its basis. There can be
nothing in the intellect that has not come directly or indirectly
through the senses. Catholic philosophy agrees with Kant then in holding
that knowledge begins with the experience of the senses. It differs
from Kant in saying that it does not end there. Catholic philosophy
holds that the mind recognises that the objects presented to the senses
are real things, and that its knowledge regarding them is true
knowledge. Opinions may differ as to the process, but all Catholic
philosophy is agreed as to the fact.
Kant was a horrible enemy of the Catholic Faith whose philosophy is the foundation for the Vatican II modernists...
To sum up, Kant would say: we know phenomena only and, as to the thing
itself, at most we can only surmise its existence as occasioning the
phenomena we know.
Catholic philosophy would say: we know the phenomena and through the
phenomena we know the thing; for the phenomena are not the creations of
our senses, but the thing itself as manifest to us. The bearing upon
faith of this theory of Kant is obvious at once. Kant maintains that the
human intellect knows phenomena, appearances alone. But God and the
things of God, the supernatural truths of faith, are not appearances.
"Faith is the evidence of things that appear not" (Heb. ii. i). Are we
to say that God and the things of God are incapable of being known by
us? St Paul told the Romans that "the invisible things of God are
clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, His eternal
power also, and divinity" (Rom. i. 20). Are we to say that the invisible
things of God cannot be clearly seen, cannot be understood by the
things that are made? Certainly, say the more thorough-going disciples
of Kant. These things are unknowable. And God Himself is the Great
Unknowable, the Great Unknown. So spoke that disciple of Kant, Herbert
Spencer, the agnostic. And at first sight it would certainly seem that
in speaking thus Herbert Spencer was following out the premisses of Kant
to their logical conclusion. At first sight the logical conclusion of
Kant's system would seem to be agnosticism. But Kant, to do him justice,
was not minded to be an agnostic in the strict sense. Kant was what is
called in Germany a Pietist, what we should call in England perhaps an
evangelical of the Methodist type. But Kant's premisses seemed to lead
to agnosticism. Then he must devise some way of escape from such a
conclusion. And the way of escape he devised was this. It is true, he
said, that God cannot be known by the intellect. That is all I maintain.
But we have another faculty by which God can be attained. That other
faculty Kant called the Practical Reason. And so we have Kant's
"Critique
of Practical Reason" to supplement his "Critique of Pure Reason." Our
pure reason, Kant said, our speculative reason, cannot indeed attain to
God and the supernatural, but our practical reason can. For our
practical reason postulates God as the basis of the moral order. So far
our practical reason reveals to us the need of God and bids us tend to
Him as our Ideal. And so by our practical reason we can be brought into
touch with God, though by pure reason we cannot.
Archbishop Lefebvre on the heretical/schismatic Vatican II: So, they are no small errors. We are not dealing in trifles. We
are into a line of philosophical thinking that goes back to Kant,
Descartes, the whole line of modern philosophers who paved the way for
the Revolution. Archbishop Lefebvre's address to his priests given in Econe, Switzerland on September 6, 1990
Now see if the Neo-SSPX leaders still believe what their founder taught...The answer is unequivocally, no!
This much it was necessary to say of the philosophy of Kant -- perhaps I
should apologise for saying so much -- as a preliminary to showing that
Modernism is founded on Kant's system. Something has been said already
about the influence of Kant on those who came after him. That influence
may be truly said to have been enormous. He is held to have done much to
solve the problem of knowledge which had puzzled thinkers like
Descartes, and Spinoza, and Locke, and Berkeley, and
Hume. The systems of Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer, even though
they differ from Kant's, owe much to his. Men as widely different in
their views as Goethe, John Paul Richter, von Humboldt, Strauss, Renan,
and, in our country, Darwin, Herbert Spencer, Huxley, Thomas Carlyle,
show traces of his influence. We catch echoes of his teaching even in
poetry, in the poems of Schiller in Kant's native land, in the poems of
Tennyson in our own. Some of you may remember the lines in Tennyson's
"In Memoriam": "We have but faith, we cannot know, For knowledge is of
things we see." That is a poetical rendering of Kant's dictum that
knowledge is confined to phenomena. And, like so many others, the
Modernists, as will be seen in the sequel, have fallen under the spell
of Kant. It is not surprising then that their effort to reconcile
Catholicity with modern thought should start with an attempt to
reconcile
Catholic faith with Kant's theory of knowledge.{3} How that attempt was made, and with what success, we shall hope to show in the following lectures.
{1} "Benigni in Miscellanea," January, 1904. {2} Auguste Sabatier, "Esquisse," p. 359. {3}
See "Mediaevalism," Tyrrell, p. 110, where the writer, though he
labours to show that his theory is not derived from Kant, does not deny
that it is the same as Kant's. Cp. "Risposta all' Enciclica," p. 99:
"The concepts which served as a basis for these arguments (the arguments
by which scholastics prove the possibility of our knowledge of God)
have lost, owing to the labours of post-Kantian criticism, the character
of absolute truth which the Aristotelians of the Middle Ages attributed
to them," and p. 75, "We adhere to the Critique of Pure Reason of Kant
and Spencer.
Devastating Effects of Vatican II/Novus Ordo on Society
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