Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/105

demns, in place of adoring God, blasphemes. Woe to the arrogant who interrogate him, and happy are the humble who adore him! For he will come both to the one and to the other; to the one, as summoned, in the day of judgment, and to the other, as adored, in the day of adoration. He will respond to all who call upon him; to the ones in wrath, to the others in mercy.

Let it not be said that this doctrine is an absurdity, involving the denial of the competency of human reason to understand the things of God, and thereby implicitly condemns the theologians and holy doctors, and even the very Church, that have in past ages so fully discussed and investigated these questions. What this doctrine denies is, the capacity of reason unenlightened by faith to understand the truths of revelation and faith, in so far as they are supernatural. When we attempt to comprehend these mysteries unaided, we act in relation to God as judges against whose judgments there is no appeal. This supposition, whether its sentence is condemnatory or absolutory, is alike blasphemous. It is so, not so much on account of what is asserted or denied respecting God, as on account of what human reason implicitly affirms of itself; for whether it be condemnation or absolution, it always affirms the same thing, namely, its own independence and sovereignty. When the most holy Church asserts or denies anything respecting God, it simply repeats what it has learned from God. When eminent theologians and pious doctors investigate the profound depths of the divine excellencies, it is always with a secret terror and assisted by faith. They do not suppose that they can discover mysteries in God which are unknown to faith; but they unite the light of reason to the light of faith; so that