Puslapio vaizdai
PDF
„ePub“

sible to conceive it to be any thing else. We do not say or imply that religion with non-Catholics or with noChurchmen is only an idea, for we hold that the Church exists, that there is an organized religion actually existing in the world, from which even those who are not within her communion, and who even deny her to be the Church of God, derive many truths and religious convictions to which they would be absolute strangers were it not for her presence and influence. There is in fact an objective religion actually existing in the world; and hence the actual notions or convictions of all men who live and are brought up in Christendom, are not purely subjective, are not pure ideas, or merely private convictions, for they have their source, and their objective basis in the actually existing Church. What we say is, that religion, on the supposition that there were no Church, no religious organism in existence, is only an idea, and this cannot be successfully denied.

Nobody denies that religious convictions derived indirectly from the Church have a certain influence on the conduct even of non-Catholics; but experience proves them to be insufficient, because they are more or less subject to individual or popular passion and caprice, and are never strong enough to resist the despotism of either. We of course do not look upon Protestants, or reason with them, as we should, if there were no Church in the world. The Church is a city set upon a hill, that cannot be hid, and her light sends out its rays far and wide beyond her walls. The nations that reject her never do, and while she exists never can, sink so low as did ancient Pagan nations, or find themselves enveloped in a moral darkness so thick as was theirs. We concede that the presence of the Church in our country keeps alive the sense of religion in multitudes who are not within her pale, and exerts a conservative influence even on many who deny her claims, or war against her. But this proves nothing in favor of the efficiency of religion as a pure idea, or in favor of the position that religion unorganized, uninstituted, will serve the purpose of harmonizing authority and liberty; because religion even with these is not a pure idea, as it would be if there were no such thing as an actually existing Church. It is this fact

that deceives so many non-Catholics, and induces them to suppose that what of religion they have does not derive its efficacy, so far as efficacy it has, from the Church or an actually existing religious organism, but that it is efficacious simply as an idea.

Religion to answer our purpose, it is conceded, must be a power, capable on the one hand of restraining or resisting authority when it tends to become despotic, and on the other of restraining or resisting individualism when it tends to anarchy. Then it must be a power distinct from both, and capable of a distinct and separate action of its own, now with, now against, one or the other, as the occasion demands. When the state would encroach on personal freedom, it throws itself on the side of the individual against the state; when individualism would encroach on the just prerogatives of authority and introduce anarchy, it throws itself on the side of authority, and upholds or defends it against individualism, or personal freedom pushed to license. It must, then, be a power resting on a basis independent of both the other social elements, and able to act not only without them, but even against them, and so act as to control them, and compel each to return to its own province, and keep within it. But religion as idea, opinion, or private conviction, cannot be such a power, for it is included in the individual taken in the concrete, and has no separate or distinct activity. When you deny religion all organic existence of its own, when you deny it to be a Church or organism, you deny it all substantive existence, and make it a predicate either of the state or of the individual,—not a subject, but the attribute of a subject, subsisting only in the subject of which it is the attribute. If you predicate it of authority, the subject, agent, or power that acts is society, and you have nothing to interpose between society and the individual; if you predicate it of the individual, the subject, agent, or power that acts is the individual, and you have no third element or power to interpose between the individual and the government. In either case you have only the two social elements, the state and the individual, while you concede that a third is essential. The religion you assert is not a third element, for it resolves itself into an attribute or function either of the state or of the individual, and as such answers not the

purpose conceded. To be a power, distinct from the other two elements, and capable of mediating between them, religion must, in the necessity of the case, be a substantive existence, be an agent with a will and activity of its own, which can act irrespective of the activity of either of the others, as much so as one man can act irrespective of another man. It must act from its own centre, its own inherent life and energy, which it cannot do, if it is only an attribute or function of the individual or of the state,-if it is not an organic existence, as much so as the state or the individual, if it is not an organism, that is to say the Church, as we alleged in the article to which our Universalist friend takes exception.

The author seems not to have felt the force of the reason we assigned why religion, to answer the purpose assumed, must be the Christian Church, or religion as an organism. That reason is, that religion without the Church is only an idea, and, therefore, not a power. If he had remarked the sense in which we habitually use the word idea, or had consulted his philosophy, we think he could hardly have failed to perceive that what we really alleged was that religion, which is not an organism or Church, which is only an idea, cannot answer our purpose, because such religion is not an actual, but only a possible religion. Ideas are not substantive existences, as Plato according to Aristotle taught, and can exist only in some intelligence, without which they are absolute nullitics. They must be regarded as existing either in the Divine mind, or as existing in the human mind. In the Divine mind, ideas are the eternal types or possibilities of things, not things actually existing, but which God may create or cause to exist, if he chooses; in the human mind, ideas are the apprehension of actual or possible existences. In neither case are they the existence or the thing itself. Religion as a simple idea in the Divine mind is merely possible religion, or the possibility of religion; in the human mind it is the intuition or apprehension of that possibility, or the power of God to give us a religion, if he chooses. In neither case is it actual religion, or the intuition or apprehension of an actual religion. Nothing is apprehended or asserted, but the possibility of religion, or a possible religion, and we need not undertake to prove that what is merely

possible is not a power. The possible is something which may but does not actually exist, and what does not actually exist is incapable of acting, or of producing any effect whatever. Had our Boston friend considered this, or allowed himself to reflect for a moment on the point, for he unquestionably knows all this well enough, we cannot doubt that he would have seen that the reason we assigned why religion to be a power must be the Church or an organism was a solid reason, and very much to the purpose. He could not have failed to perceive that religion must be an organism, or the Church, for if not, it is no actual religion at all, no actual existence, as we had explained in our article on The Constitution of the Church, in this Review for January, 1856, and which the author might have had under his eye, but which he appears not to have remarked.

Although the Reviewer cannot be unacquainted with the teachings of philosophy with regard to ideas, he seems not to have grasped the Catholic conception of the Church, and his own views of religion appear to have prevented him from clearly apprehending the reason why Catholics maintain that Christianity to be efficacious, must be the Christian Church. We must let him speak once more for himself,

"We have said that the whole controversy between Protestantism and Catholicism finds its turning-point in the position so unceremoniously assumed by Mr. Brownson, that religion, to be of any use in adjusting the conflicting tendencies of the individual and the State, must be the Christian Church, or religion organized. Unless it has a visible organization, it is nothing but individualism, and so subject to the caprice of the individual, altered at his will, and instead of ruling him, ruled by him. Now, as it seems to us, the first mistake-and we will show it to be an egregious one-in his argument, is in this unsupported assumption. Does religion get its efficacy from organization? The assertion is most preposterous, for the truth is precisely the contrary. Organization gets its efficiency from religion; religion by no means gets its efficiency from organization. We do indeed believe in organization. Truth, as it operates on the minds of men, brings them together; and systematic action is found to be natural and convenient. But the fountain of force is in the truth itself. In fact, organization is powerless except as held together by the adhesive force of the idea which calls it into being. That religion can do its work better through organiza

tion that it finds in this an instrumentality, a convenience, will be conceded by most Protestants; but the notion, that the efficiency of religion is in the instrumentality-that it is powerless and useless except as it has this, is philosophically absurd.

"We take the ground, that a religious organization has power, and that it gets this power from religion itself. This we are safe in terming a Protestant position. But how does religion communicate its power to the organization? We are prepared to answer: through the individual. In a visible Church there is just as much of power as the several members thereof bring into it. Religion manifests itself through the individual conscience and heart. It exerts its power as it enlightens the mind, warms the affections, and stimulates the sense of rectitude. All the religion there is or ever was in the world reached the world in this way. Mr. Brownson objects to this, and calls it individualism. We shall not quarrel with him about terms. We admit that, so far as regards the method whereby religion becomes a power among men, the Protestant view may be called individualism. But why object to individualism in this qualified application of the term? Mr. Brownson's objection involves the essential fallacy in his argument to prove that the Catholic Church is necessary to the republic."-pp. 412, 413.

This, unquestionably, would be very conclusive against us, if we held or were obliged to hold the view our learned friend supposes. He very quietly assumes that we do and must make Christianity depend for its efficacy on the Church, or the organization; but in doing so he ascribes to us his views instead of taking ours. We derive neither the efficacy of Christianity from organization, nor the efficacy of the organization from Christianity, simply because we do not distinguish between them, and hold that Christianity and the Church are identically one and the same thing. Christianity is efficacious as the Church, because it is only as the Church that it exists, or that there is any Christianity. This is the point in our argument which our learned author has been prevented by his own no-Church views from distinctly apprehending, perhaps, even from suspecting, and by his supposing that we speak only of the outward or visible organization, when by the Church we mean always the entire organism, external and internal, visible and invisible, which are no more separable than body and soul without death.

The able and philosophical writer supposes, what we deny, that there is an actual, living, efficacious Christianity

« AnkstesnisTęsti »