Dr. Wilhelm and Fr. Scannell have conferred upon the faithful in England a signal boon in publishing Scheeben’s scientific Dogmatik in English, and condensing it for careful and conscientious study.

St. Anselm, in his work, “Cur Deus Homo?” says, “As the right order requires that we should first believe the deep things of the Christian faith before we presume to discuss them by reason, so it seems to me to be negligence if, after we are confirmed in the faith, we do not study to understand what we believe.”

The Dogmatik of Scheeben is a profuse exposition of the deep things of faith in the light of intelligence guided by the illumination of the Church. Although, as Gregory of Valentia teaches, in accordance with the Catholic schools, that Theology is not a science proprie dicta, because it cannot be resolved into first principles that are self-evident, nevertheless it is higher than all sciences, because it can be resolved into the science of God and of the Blessed, known to us by revelation and faith.

Theology may for that cause be called wisdom, which is higher than all science, and also it may be called science for many reasons. First, because, if it be not a science as to its principles, it is so as to its form, method, process, development, and transmission; and because, if its principles are not evident, they are in all the higher regions of it infallibly certain; and because many of them are necessary and eternal truths.

Revelation, then, contemplated and transmitted in exactness and method, may be called a science and the queen of sciences, the chief of the hierarchy of truth; and it enters and takes the first place in the intellectual system and tradition of the world. It possesses all the qualities and conditions of science so far as its subject-matter admits; namely, certainty as against doubt, definiteness as against vagueness, harmony as against discordance, unity as against incoherence, progress as against dissolution and stagnation.

A knowledge and belief of the existence of God has never been extinguished in the reason of mankind. The polytheisms and idolatries which surrounded it were corruptions of a central and dominant truth, which, although obscured, was never lost. And the tradition of this truth was identified with the higher and purer operations of the natural reason, which have been called the intellectual system of the world. The mass of mankind, howsoever debased, were always theists. Atheists were anomalies and exceptions, as the blind among men. The theism of the primæval revelation formed the intellectual system of the heathen world. The theism of the patriarchal revelation formed the intellectual system of the Hebrew race. The theism revealed in the incarnation of God has formed the intellectual system of the Christian world. “Sapientia ædificavit sibi domum.” The science or knowledge of God has built for itself a tabernacle in the intellect of mankind, inhabits it, and abides in it The intellectual science of the world finds its perfection in the scientific expression of the theology of faith. But from first to last the reason of man is the disciple, not the critic, of the revelation of God: and the highest science of the human intellect is that which, taking its preamble from the light of nature, begins in faith; and receiving its axioms from faith, expands by the procession of truth from truth.

The great value of Scheeben’s work is in its scientific method, its terminology, definitions, procedure, and unity. It requires not only reading but study; and study with patient care and conscientious desire to understand. Readers overrun truths which they have not mastered. Students leave nothing behind them until it is understood. This work needs such a conscientious treatment from those who take it in hand.

Valuable as it is in all its parts, the most valuable may be said to be the First Book, on the Sources of Theological Knowledge, and the Second Book, on God in Unity and Trinity. Any one who has mastered this second book has reached the Head of the River of the Water of Life.

Of all the superstitious and senseless mockeries, and they were many, with which the world wagged its head at the Vatican Council, none was more profoundly foolish than the gibe that in the nineteenth century a Council has been solemnly called to declare the existence of God. In fact, it is this truth that the nineteenth century needs most of all. For as St. Jerome says, “Homo sine cognitione Dei, pecus.” But what the Council did eventually declare is, not the existence of God, but that the existence of God may be known with certitude by the reason of man through the works that He has created. This is the infallible light of the Natural Order, and the need of this definition is perceived by all who know the later Philosophies of Germany and France, and the rationalism, scepticism, and naturalism which pervades the literature, the public opinion, and the political action of the modern world. This was the first dominant error of these days, demanding the action of the Council. The second was the insidious undermining of the doctrinal authority of the Holy See, which for two hundred years had embarrassed the teaching of the Church, not only in controversy with adversaries without, but often in the guidance of some of its own members within the fold. The definition of the Infallible Magisterium of the Roman Pontiff has closed this period of contention The Divine certitude of the Supernatural Order completes the twofold infallibility of the knowledge of God in the natural and supernatural revelation of Himself. This was the work of the Vatican Council in its one memorable Session, in which the Councils of the Church, and especially the Councils of Florence and of Trent, culminated in defining the certitude of faith.

Scheeben has fully and luminously exhibited the mind of the Vatican Council in his First and Second Books.

Henry Edward,

Cardinal Archbishop.

Epiphany, 1890.