Page:The True Story of the Vatican Council.djvu/145

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The True Story of the Vatican Council.
133

elicited from it, nevertheless maintain that reason is the measure of truth, and that nothing which is incomprehensible is credible. The teachers of this school tell us that although without revelation many truths would not have been known to man, yet when once revealed they may be adequately comprehended and proved by reason, so that they become objects not only of faith, but of science. They therefore undertook to demonstrate the doctrines of the Holy Trinity and of the incarnation, which, when they had been reduced to the measure of reason, ceased to be the doctrines of revelation. This, especially in the last century, was the first momentum which carried many into unbelief of revelation altogether.

But if the truths of faith are not at the same time truths of science that is, adequately measured by the reason and resolved into their first and self-evident principles—then there is an essential distinction between faith and science. Both are operations of the reason, and both are strictly rational, but they are distinguished by their subject-matter, and are therefore distinct in their principles. Faith is the obedience of the created intellect in dependence upon the uncreated intelligence of God. But faith is not a blind or irrational act. The motives and preludes of faith are processes of reason. Reason weighs the evidences which show that it is reasonable and