ought to be known about God, His designs, and His works, is within the sphere of Natural Revelation. The unaided light of reason can attain only a mediate knowledge of God by means of the study of His creatures, and must consequently be imperfect. Both the subjective medium (the human mind) and the objective medium (creation), are finite, whereas God is infinite. Moreover, the human intellect, by reason of its dependence on the senses, is so imperfect that it knows the essences of things only from their phenomena, and therefore only obscurely and imperfectly. And lastly, the study of nature can result only in the knowledge of such truths as are necessarily connected with it, and can tell us nothing about any free acts which God may have performed above and beyond nature, the knowledge of which He may nevertheless require of us.
Thus, even if the knowledge of God through the medium of nature without any special help were sufficient for our natural vocation, there would still be room for another and a supernatural revelation. But Natural Revelation is, in a certain sense, insufficient even for our natural vocation, as we shall now proceed to prove.
SECT. 3.—THE OBJECT AND NECESSITY OF A POSITIVE REVELATION—ITS SUPERNATURAL CHARACTER
I. The direct object or purpose of Positive Revelation is to impart to us the knowledge of the truths which it contains or to develop and perfect such knowledge of them as we already possess. The remote, but at the same time the chief, object is to enable us to attain our last end. The measure of the knowledge required depends upon the end ordained to man by his Creator; its necessity is determined by the capability or incapability of man to acquire this knowledge. Thus the necessity of a Positive Revelation varies according to the end to be attained and man’s capacity to attain it.
II. Man, as we shall see, is destined to a supernatural end, and consequently the principal object of a Positive Revelation is to enable him to reach it. But this supernatural vocation does not relieve him from his natural duties, and even for the fulfilment of these a Positive Revelation is in
