History of the Conflict Between Religion and ScienceDraper, John William
Religion
History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science
Draper, John William
Religion and science -- History
"No one can be justified without this faith, nor shall any one, unless
he persevere therein to the end, attain everlasting life. Hence God,
through his only-begotten Son, has established the Church as the
guardian and teacher of his revealed word. For only to the Catholic
Church do all those signs belong which make evident the credibility of
the Christian faith. Nay, more, the very Church herself, in view of
her wonderful propagation, her eminent holiness, her exhaustless
fruitfulness in all that is good, her Catholic unity, her unshaken
stability, offers a great and evident claim to belief, and an undeniable
proof of her divine mission. Thus the Church shows to her children that
the faith they hold rests on a most solid foundation. Wherefore, totally
unlike is the condition of those who, by the heavenly gift of faith,
have embraced the Catholic truth, and of those who, led by human
opinions, are following, a false religion."
"OF FAITH AND REASON.--Moreover, the Catholic Church has ever held and
now holds that there exists a twofold order of knowledge, each of which
is distinct from the other, both as to its principle and its object. As
to its principle, because in the one we know by natural reason, in the
other by divine faith; as to the object, because, besides those things
which our natural reason can attain, there are proposed to our belief
mysteries hidden in God, which, unless by him revealed, cannot come to
our knowledge.
"Reason, indeed, enlightened by faith, and seeking, with diligence and
godly sobriety, may, by God's gift, come to some understanding, limited
in degree, but most wholesome in its effects, of mysteries, both from
the analogy of things which are naturally known and from the connection
of the mysteries themselves with one another and with man's last end.
But never can reason be rendered capable of thoroughly understanding
mysteries as it does those truths which form its proper object. For
God's mysteries, in their very nature, so far surpass the reach of
created intellect, that, even when taught by revelation and received by
faith, they remain covered by faith itself, as by a veil, and shrouded,
as it were, in darkness as long as in this mortal life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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