This letter was written by Father Tyrrell to a Professor of Anthropology in the Continental University, who found it difficult, if not impossible, to square his science with his faith as a Catholic. Father Tyrrell, in an Introduction to the letter, gives an account of the whole matter, and vindicates the position which he took up in dealing with the doubts and fears of his correspondent. * * * * * Those who were interested in a recent significant incident in ecclesiastical circles will find themselves fully informed ...
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This letter was written by Father Tyrrell to a Professor of Anthropology in the Continental University, who found it difficult, if not impossible, to square his science with his faith as a Catholic. Father Tyrrell, in an Introduction to the letter, gives an account of the whole matter, and vindicates the position which he took up in dealing with the doubts and fears of his correspondent. * * * * * Those who were interested in a recent significant incident in ecclesiastical circles will find themselves fully informed here as to details. Father Tyrrell gives an explanation, at once lucid, charitable and strong, of the reasons for his dismissal from the Society of Jesus, together with the full text of the famous letter which led to the event, and extracts from his correspondence with the General of the Jesuits. Father Tyrrell, in an Introduction to the letter, gives an account of the whole matter, and vindicates the position which he took up in dealing with the doubts and fears of his correspondent. -"The Cambridge Review," Volume 28 [1907] In a private letter, the appearance of portions of which in an Italian journal led to his expulsion from the Society of Jesus, and which has since been published with an introduction and notes in a volume entitled A Much-Abused Letter, Tyrrell says: "It seems to me that a man might have great faith in the Church, in the people of God, in the unformulated ideas, sentiments, and tendencies at work in the great body of the faithful, and constituting the Christian and Catholic 'spirit'; and yet regard the Church's consciously formulated ideas and intentions about herself as more or less untrue to her deepest nature; that he might refuse to believe her own account of herself as against his instinctive conviction of her true character; that he might say to her: 'Nescitis cujus spiritus estis'-'You know not your own essential spirit'" (pp. 56f.). And in the volume on Medievalism already quoted he says, "I ask myself whether a consensus in purely theological matters could ever possibly be more than that of a mere handful of experts; whether the general acquiescence of the crowd can have the slightest confirmatory value, any more than that of a class of schoolboys can be said to confirm the teachings of their master" (pp. 81f.). In other words, in the last analysis the religious experience of those truly Christian, and of those alone, is the only competent and adequate authority. "A general consensus of the faithful," he says, "can only obtain in regard to those matters where all may be experts; matters within the potential experience of each; matters which interest and affect their daily spiritual life- the life of Faith in virtue of which they are called 'the faithful.'" "If Faith were theology its problems could never be settled by general consensus. But because it is not theology, but the Gospel, because its object is that life of which Christ is the Divine Revelation, and not the analysis of that life, every believer may, as an expert, speak of his own personal response to the Gospel. Each is a judge of faith; and the agreement of all is an infallible judgment, eliminating private errors and idiosyncrasies" (p. 82). -"The Harvard Theological Review" [1910]
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Throughout the nineteenth century great changes were taking place in nearly all aspects of human life and culture. Perhaps nowhere was this impact so strongly felt, than in the scientific and intellectual realm. Discoveries were being made which called into question ideas which were hitherto unshakably believed. A previously unknown liberty and freedom of thought and opinion in the scholastic world was also challenging traditional thought or dismissing it altogether. The Church needed to react and stem this seemingly overwhelming tide which threatened destruction to so much that the Church held and holds. The Church viewed much of what the modernist movement and thinkers produced as harmful, false, and dangerous to Her Divine mission. Thus Pius IX wrote such encyclicals as Quanta Cura and Qui Pluribus and such indexes as the Syllabus of Errors. To protect the faithful from, and as a reaction against, the modern errors and against the onslaught of perverse new ideas, Vatican I was called and infallibility defined. So the Church combated the modernist movement by defiantly digging in her heels with such statements as; ?Hence all faithful Christians are forbidden to defend as the legitimate conclusions of science those opinions which are known to be contrary to the doctrine of faith, particularly if they have been condemned by the Church.? George Tyrrell, who was a Jesuit at the time, also tried to come up with a solution to the same problem. He, however, took a slightly different approach. Rather than the outright rejection that came from Rome, Tyrrell attempted to adapt Christianity to the new tendencies in thought and science. He saw a need for adaptation because, in the light of new discoveries, what has been held by Catholics no longer seems tenable. ?The conservative positions are maintained by ignorance, systematic or involuntary.? (pg. 48) Inconsistencies and falsities had been exposed by recently laid out truths (or seeming truths). Tyrrell saw this as a potential religious crisis. People were beginning to doubt their faith because of the rising intellectualism and its findings. ?It is just those whose mentality is specifically modern, whose minds are well knit together and unified by the categories and methods of current thought, who will necessarily realize the difficulty of assimilating a theology fabricated to suit the mentality of an earlier day.? (pg. 30) It was for this reason that Tyrrell wrote his originally private ?much abused letter? to a friend of his who was experiencing doubt. ?How can I remain a Catholic and still hold certain things which my reason tells me are true but seem to go against the teachings of the Church?? asks Tyrrell?s friend. Tyrrell does not at all think that his friend ought to leave the Church. Instead, Theology must be properly understood and when that happens, his friend?s difficulty will be no more. He thinks that the Church will have to undergo an evolution (or revolution) of sorts. He compares what the Church will have to go through with what Judaism went through when it morphed into Christianity and Catholicism. Tyrrell makes a very interesting distinction between the Catholic faith and the systematized Church; a separation between the proper Church, which is invisible, and Theology, which is visible. ?We may find a maximum of faith consistent in certain circumstances with a minimum of theology.? (pg. 32) When working within the visible realm, there is infinite opportunity for confusion. Experience and reflection confirm me daily in the conviction that life is less simple than we learnt from our copy-books and our catechisms, and that our choices ? leastways, those of any moment ? are rarely between good and evil, divisible as it were with a hatchet, but rather between courses mixed in varying proportions of both one and the other. (pg. 21)
Tyrrell asserts that his friend?s difficulty lies not with the Church, but with theologians. Theology is simply an attempt to express Catholicism and faith. It can, and often does, err, being a human endeavor. Theology is emphatically not the true faith of those in the Catholic Church. A problem arises when one becomes too caught up in theology to the detriment of true religion. It is the latter which is important, the result of faith and capable of justification, and not the former. Since theology is not necessarily an accurate portrayal of the Catholic faith, one could be a Catholic in good conscience while rejecting Catholic Theology as an inaccurate depiction. (Tyrrell is clear, however, that he is not at all suggesting individualism.) Theology, being nothing but an attempt at understanding the Catholic life, can be in error without the faith itself being in error. Therefore, one can question or strongly doubt theology while remaining steadfast in the Church and faith (?unformulated Catholicism? [Pg 60]). Tyrrell conformed to the modernist sway. So the Church and Tyrrell basically did the same thing but by two different methods. There were conclusions being made which contradicted the teachings and traditions of the Church. Something had to be done. The Church condemned the conclusions and those from whom they originated. Tyrrell said that the conclusions were compatible with the Catholic faith and attempted to explain why. He is, therefore, justly labeled a modernist. His explanations led to his excommunication.
