CHAPTER IV.
OF FAITH AND REASON.
The Catholic Church, with one consent has also ever held and does hold that there is a tWofold order of knowledge, distinct both in principle and also in object; in principle, because our knowledge in the one is by natural reason, and in the other by divine faith; in object, because, besides those things to which natural reason can attain, there are proposed to our belief mysteries hidden in God, which, unless divinely revealed, cannot be known. Wherefore the Apostle, who testifies that God is known by the gentiles through created things, still, when discoursing of the grace and truth which come by Jesus Christ (John i. 17) says: 'We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, a wisdom which is hidden, which God ordained before the world unto our glory; which none of the princes of this world knew … but to us God hath revealed them by His Spirit. For the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God' (1 Cor. ii. 7-9). And the only-begotten Son himself gives thanks to the Father, because He has hid these things from the wise and prudent, and has revealed them to little ones (Matt. xi. 25).
Reason, indeed, enlightened by faith, when it seeks earnestly, piously, and calmly, attains by a gift from God. some, and that a very fruitful, understanding of mysteries; partly from the analogy of those things which it naturally knows, partly from the relations which the mysteries bear to one another and to the last end of man; but reason never becomes capable of apprehending mysteries as it does those truths which constitute its proper object. For the divine mysteries by their own nature so far transcend the created intelligence that, even when delivered by revelation and received by faith, they remain covered with the veil of faith itself, and shrouded in a certain degree of darkness, so long as we are pilgrims in this mortal life, not yet with God; 'for we walk by faith and not by sight' (2 Cor. v. 7).
But although faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason, since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind, and God cannot deny Himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth. The false appearance of such a contradiction is mainly due, either to the dogmas of faith not having been understood and expounded according to the mind of the Church, or to the inventions of opinion having been taken for
