Ground-Floor Religion

Extract

It there is a common bond among all the non-Catholic sects it is probably their opposition to the Church; and if there is a similar bond between the various Philosophies ranged against Catholicism to-day it would seem to be their opposition to the idea of a Transcendent God. Many are willing to admit a Spirit of some kind, but Immanent in Nature, in Men, in History, or in Time. And this is true not only of those whose main concern is with life and evolution, such as Bergson and his later followers, but also of those who hold that the one reality is History or the operation of mind, such as Croce and Idealists of the extreme type. We will, therefore, examine some of these systems to see, if possible, the reasons for this condition of affairs.

Among the many causes there can be no doubt that one of them is the present-day tendency to exalt Experience at the expense of Reason. One bad effect of this is a loss of objectivity, which is well illustrated by a story of the war when a returned soldier was convicted of a glaring contradiction in relating his adventures. His retort was: ‘Oh, thought you wanted experiences, not a blooming argument.’ For while Experience may satisfy an individual of the existence of an Immanent Spirit, reason is required to demonstrate to others the reality of a Transcendent God. As Maritain says, ‘it is in virtue of that intellectual operation which is the activity most profoundly distinctive of man, namely ratiocination, that it (the existence of God) becomes evident to us.’