whatever on our part. Agnosticism, in other words, insists that we must believe in the existence of an absolute and infinite Being and at the same time warns us that we can have no idea of that Being. Our belief must express itself in terms that are meaningless. To avoid this conclusion one may reject altogether a term out of which all significance has evaporated; or (and this seems a wiser course) one may retrace the genesis of the term and bold fast to the items of knowledge, however imperfect and however in need of criticism, which that genesis involves. In proving the existence of God as First Cause, or as Absolute Being, we take as our starting-point facts that are knowable and known. So far as, in reasoning upon these facts, we are led beyond them to the concept of an Absolute, some remnant of the knowableness which facts present must be found in that which is the ultimate explanation of the facts. If, as Spencer affirms, "every one of the arguments by which the relativity of our knowledge is demonstrated distinctly postulates the positive existence of something beyond the relative", it follows that by getting clearly before our thought the meaning of those arguments and their force for distinctly postulating we must obtain some knowledge of the Being whose existence is thus established. Spencer, indeed, does not realize the full import of the words "positive existence", "ultimate reality", and "incomprehensible power", which he uses so freely. Otherwise he could not consistently declare that the Being to which these various predicates apply is unknowable. It is in fact remarkable that so much knowledge of the Absolute is displayed in the attempt to prove that the Absolute cannot be known. Careful analysis of a concept like that of First Cause certainly shows that it contains a wealth of meaning which forbids its identification with the Unknowable, even supposing that the positive existence of the Unknowable could be logically demonstrated. Such an analysis is furnished by St. Thomas and by other representatives of Christian philosophy. The method which St. Thomas formulated, and which his successors adopted, keeps steadily in view the requirements of critical thinking, and especially the danger of applying the forms of our human knowledge, without due refinement, to the Divine Being. The warning against our anthropomorphic tendency was clearly given before the Absolute had taken its actual place in philosophic speculation, or had yielded that place to the Unknowable. While this warning is always needful, especially in the interest of religion, nothing can be gained by the attempt to form a concept of God which offers a mere negation to thought and to worship. It is of course equally futile to propose an unknowable Absolute as the basis of reconciliation between religion and science. The failure of Spencer's philosophy in this respect is the more disastrous because, while it allows full scope to science in investigating the manifestations of the Absolute, it sets aside the claim of religion to learn anything of the power which is thus manifested. (See Agnosticism, Aseity, Analogy, God, Knowledge, Theology. For Hegel's conception of the Absolute, see Hegelianism, Idealism, Pantheism.)
Schumacher, The Knowableness of God (Notre Dame, Indiana, 1905), contains good bibliography; St. Thomas, Summa, I, Q. xiii; Contra Gentes, II, 12, 13; Hamilton, Discussions (New York, 1860); Mill, An Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy (Boston, 1865); Mansel, The Philosophy of the Conditioned (London, 1866); Caird, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion (Glasgow, 1901); Royce, The World and the Individual (New York, 1900); Flint, Agnosticism (New York, 1903).
Absolution (Ab = from; solvere = to free), is the remission of sin, or of the punishment due to sin, granted by the Church. (For remission of punishment due to sin, see Censure, Excommunication, Indulgence.) Absolution proper is that act of the priest whereby, in the Sacrament of Penance, he frees man from sin. It presupposes on the part of the penitent, contrition, confession, and promise at least of satisfaction; on the part of the minister, valid reception of the Order of Priesthood and jurisdiction, granted by competent authority, over the person receiving the sacrament. That there is in the Church power to absolve sins committed after baptism the Council of Trent thus declares: "But the Lord then principally instituted the Sacrament of Penance, when, being raised from the dead, He breathed upon His disciples saying, 'Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them, and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained.' By which action so signal, and words so clear the consent of all the Fathers has ever understood that the power of forgiving and retaining sins was communicated to the Apostles, and to their lawful successors for the reconciling of the faithful who have fallen after baptism" (Sess. XIV, i). Nor is there lacking in divine revelation proof of such power; the classical texts are those found in Matthew, xvi, 19; xviii, 18, and in John, xx, 21–23. To Peter are given the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Sin is the great obstacle to entrance into the kingdom, and over sin Peter is supreme. To Peter and to all the Apostles is given the power to bind and to loose, and this again implies supreme power both legislative and judicial: power to forgive sins, power to free from sin's penalties. This interpretation becomes more clear in studying the rabbinical literature, especially of Our Lord's time, in which the phrase to bind and to loose was in common use. (Lightfoot, Horæ Hebraicæ; Buxtorf, Lexicon Chald.; Knabenbauer, Commentary on Matthew, II, 66; particularly Maas, St. Matthew, 183, 184.) The granting of the power to absolve is put with unmistakable clearness in St. John's Gospel: "He breathed upon them and said, 'Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose sins ye shall forgive they are forgiven them; and whose sins ye shall retain, they are retained'" (xx, 22, 23). It were foolish to assert that the power here granted by Christ was simply a power to announce the Gospel (Council of Trent, Sess. XIX, Can. iii), and quite as unwise to contend that here is contained no power other than the power to remit sin in the Sacrament of Baptism (Ibid., Sess. XIV); for the very context is against such an interpretation, and the words of the text imply a strictly judicial act, while the power to retain sins becomes simply incomprehensible when applied to baptism alone, and not to an action involving discretionary judgment. But it is one thing to assert that the power of absolution was granted to the Church, and another to say that a full realization of the grant was in the consciousness of the Church from the beginning. Baptism was the first, the great sacrament, the sacrament of initiation into the kingdom of Christ. Through baptism was obtained not only plenary pardon for sin, but also for temporal punishment due to sin. Man once born anew, the Christian ideal forbade even the thought of his return to sin. Of a consequence, early Christian discipline was loath to grant even once a restoration to grace through the ministry of reconciliation vested in the Church. This severity was in keeping with St. Paul's declaration in his Epistle to the Hebrews: "For it is impossible for those who were once illuminated, have tasted also the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, have moreover tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come and are fallen away, to be renewed again to penance" etc. (vi, 4–6). The persistence of this Christian ideal is very clear in the "Pastor" of Hermas, where the author contends against a rigorist school, that at least one opportunity for penance must be given by
