Sentiments of the Fathers of the Society of Jesus on the Doctrine of Probability

There is scarcely any subject of which so much has been spoken in the Church as has been spoken, for forty or fifty years, of that of probability. But it has been spoken of so variously, and so many people, either through malice or for want of understanding the matter sufficiently well, have cast so much confusion into it, that most of the world does not have a sufficiently distinct idea of it. This is why, it being fitting to make oneself well understood here and to explain oneself on this article without evasion, it was believed that a clear notion ought to be given of the terms employed in this matter, as well as of the true and principal state of the question. Not only the Jesuit Theologians, but also all the others who have treated this subject with the design of clarifying it, require first that an opinion, in order to be truly probable, have two general conditions. The first, that it have nothing contrary to the dogmas of the faith, nothing opposed to the truths received by the Church, nor to any evident reason. In the second place, it must be supported by good reasons, and one must not rashly undertake to maintain it against the common sentiment of the Doctors. If one of these conditions is lacking in an opinion, it is no longer probable and is not among those of which there is dispute here.

Among probable opinions there are, as it were, two kinds, according to the degree of probability which they have. There are some which are called less probable, and others which are called more probable. The principal question in this matter turns upon the comparison made, touching some point of practice, between two opinions which are both probable, but of which one is less probable and the other more probable; that is to say, of which one is supported by stronger reasons, and the other by reasons less strong, though good. It is asked whether it is permitted, on this point of morals or practice, to follow the opinion which is less probable, abandoning the more probable.

This question has no place when the less probable is the safer. Here that one of the two opinions which, by everyone's admission, may be followed without sin is called the safer opinion. That one which some reasons prove would involve sin if it were followed is called the less safe. For example, upon this question: Whether a man who has committed a mortal sin is obliged to confess it at the first opportunity, and, supposing that he does not do so, whether he commits a new sin; there are two opinions: that of Saint Bonaventure, who says that in this case one is obliged to confess it as soon as possible; and that of Saint Thomas, who says that there is no obligation, under pain of sin, to do so. The first is the safer, because it is certain that in practicing it one does not sin. The second is the less safe, because there are reasons which prove that one sins in following it, although there are also other reasons which prove that one does not sin.

It can therefore happen, and it often happens, that the less probable is the safer; and in this case it is clear that one may follow the less probable. But the question is to know whether, when the less probable is at the same time the less safe, one may follow it. This is properly the capital question on this subject. From it have arisen an infinity of other difficulties in this matter, of which it would be too long to make an enumeration. It is therefore upon this capital question that the Jesuits must explain themselves here, and say what they think of this proposition: In the concurrence of two opposed probable opinions, one may follow that which is the less probable and the less safe. Here is what they have to say upon it.

First, this proposition, taken according to the odious ideas and explanations which the adversaries of the Jesuits are accustomed to give of it in their books and in their discourses, was never the opinion of their Society nor of their Theologians. They condemn it, and have always condemned it, such as it is represented in those false portraits which are made of it. In a word, it was never the sentiment of their Society that one may follow the less probable opinion when it is not truly probable and when it does not have the two conditions marked above, one of which is negative, namely, that it must not be contrary to Scripture, nor to Tradition, nor to the Decisions of the Holy See, nor to an evident reason. The other condition is positive, namely, that it must be supported by good reasons which are even recognized as such by all those, or by most of those themselves, who combat it.

Second, this doctrine, even taken with the two conditions which I have just stated, is not the opinion of their Society in the sense that one is obliged to follow it. In fact, several of their Theologians have combated it and combat it still every day. And it was thus that their thirteenth General Congregation replied when this question was put to it on behalf of the Pope: namely, whether the Society adopted this doctrine as a sentiment to which it attached itself to the exclusion of the opposed doctrine.

Third, the Jesuits will not say absolutely of this doctrine, as they have said of the error of philosophical sin and of what is imputed to them on the article of the love of God, that it has not been the doctrine of the Society. They acknowledge that it has been so in this sense, that a great part of their Theologians have maintained it; and it is of this that they must render a particular account to the public.

This reason is taken from the rule which the Jesuits imposed upon themselves from the birth of their Society, and of which I spoke at the beginning of this writing, which was to teach in Theology the opinions commonly received in the Catholic Schools. Now, that one may follow the less safe opinion, provided that it is truly probable, was not only the doctrine commonly received when the Jesuits began to write on Theology, but it was also almost generally maintained in all the Catholic Schools, so that the contrary had incomparably fewer followers there; and this is what caused the Jesuits to incline to this side much more than to the other. This fact is so important and so essential to their justification that, although it has been demonstrated a thousand times, it is well to report here a part of the proofs.

Pierre Navarre, whose book was printed as early as the year 1597, says that this was in his time the more common doctrine, communiorem Theologorum sententiam. [Lib. 3 de restitut., c. 1, n. 237. Edit. Tolet. 1597.]

As early as the year 1592, Salonius of the Order of Saint Augustine wrote that this doctrine had a greater number of defenders, and defenders of greater authority, and stronger reasons than the opposed doctrine: Cum habeat plures ac graviores authores & firmiora fundamenta quam opposita; and above all from the School of Saint Thomas, ac maxime ex discipulis Sancti Thomae. [De justit. & jure, controv. 2, concl. 4, ad art. 4, quaest. 63.]

This doctrine was therefore upon this footing before any Jesuit had yet written on Moral Theology. The greater number of the Jesuit Doctors followed it, as the greater number of the Doctors of the other Catholic Schools, and above all the School of Saint Thomas, followed it; what can their crime have been in this?

It was so generally followed in the School of Saint Thomas that, from 1570 until 1659, in the space of nearly a hundred years, during which a great number of Thomists wrote on Theology, perhaps not a single one will be found who was not of this sentiment.

In this space of time several Bishops wrote on these matters, and almost all embraced the same sentiment. One may see upon this a little Latin book printed at Paris in 1659 and entitled Quaestio facti, which gives the proof of it in detail. An infinity of Doctors of Louvain, Salamanca, Douai, and all the most celebrated Universities did not hesitate upon it. The only three Doctors of the Sorbonne who printed Courses of Theology were of the same opinion, as was M. Bail, Sub- Penitentiary of Paris. M. Hambert in France says that it was the ordinary doctrine of Theology: Ita communiter Doctores. [a. In 1. 2ae de opinione probabili, art. 4.] Bonacina, who was a Bishop in Italy, wrote the same thing there: Ita communiter Theologi. [b. T. 2, disput. 2, q. 4, l. 3, de restitutione.] Others in Germany and in Spain say the same.

This being so, what could the Jesuits have done more prudently than to conform themselves in their doctrine to the multitude of all the Theologians of whom I have just spoken, among whom are counted several Bishops, a great number of Religious of all the Orders, and above all of that of Saint Dominic, and the most distinguished Doctors of the most famous Universities of Europe?

But that upon which the Jesuits doubtless have a right to ask justice from the public is that, despite facts so evident and so incontestable, despite what is attested by several Doctors who printed before the Jesuits had written on matters of Moral Theology - that from that time the doctrine of probability was the most common among the Theologians - despite all this, it has been undertaken to persuade the whole earth that this doctrine was born in the School of the Jesuits; that it is an invention of their policy, a secret which they found to accommodate the Gospel to the corruption of the heart of man; that it is desired to render them alone responsible for the bad effects which it is claimed to produce; finally, that after this doctrine has been disfigured and rendered infinitely odious, it is spoken of as the doctrine proper and specific, so to speak, of the Jesuits, who nevertheless received it only from others and taught it only with all the others.

It is upon this, I say, that the Jesuits hope that the public will render them justice; but they must still enlighten it upon an important point in this matter. Why is it, it is said, that the Dominican Fathers, for example, having proscribed this doctrine in their Schools, although it had taken birth there and had been universally followed there for nearly a hundred years, why do the Jesuits, who received it from them, not do as much? Here is what they have to answer upon this.

1. Among the Jesuits full liberty is left to combat the doctrine of probability, and there is no obligation to maintain it.

2. Several make use of this liberty every day; and for many years there have been seen in their principal Colleges of France, as at Paris, La Fleche, Lyon, and Toulouse, various Theses maintained against this doctrine; the same thing has been seen at Rome and elsewhere.

3. If one counts the printed Books which have appeared for fifteen or twenty years upon this matter in order to treat it theologically (for I do not speak of satires against the Jesuits), one will find more Books come forth from the Society than from any other Religious Order or any other School which were made to maintain the doctrine opposed to that of probability.

Let us now say why their Society has not until the present judged it fitting authentically to forbid all Professors to teach this doctrine. These reasons are such that there is much likelihood they will be approved.

The first and principal is that the Jesuits do not believe that they can attribute to themselves the authority to condemn a doctrine which has been that of all the Catholic Schools and Universities; which has been maintained in Books by several learned and holy Prelates, and by almost all those of this rank who have treated the matter since it has been disputed in the School.

Second, it in no way befits the Jesuits to proscribe a doctrine which the Holy See has always refused to censure. For it is known that its condemnation was pursued at Rome with all possible vigor, above all during the Pontificate of Innocent XI, and that the Holy See never wished to do so; and this was apparently one of the reasons which prevented the last Assembly of the Clergy of France from placing the proposition which contains this doctrine among the propositions which the Prelates censured, contenting themselves with making at the end a declaration of the sentiment which had prevailed upon this matter in the Assembly. Even if the Jesuits had only this reason, which includes several, there is no person who, weighing it maturely, would not acknowledge that their conduct in this is very prudent; but they have still others.

The second reason for the conduct of the Jesuits in this regard is the manner in which the decline of this doctrine in the School in France came about, for elsewhere it is not upon the same footing. First, those who initially attacked it did so in order by this means to render the Jesuits odious, not knowing, through the little familiarity they had with Scholasticism, that in attacking them on this point they were taking to task all the most celebrated Schools and almost all the Theologians. Second, they began by disfiguring this doctrine and by proposing it in an odious and captious manner, concealing the reasons upon which it is founded, drawing conclusions which are in no way attached to it, and confounding a thousand things in a subject which demands, in order to be well treated, a very exact analysis, because of an infinity of circumstances of which a single one altogether changes the case; attributing to the doctrine itself the abuses which could be made of it, an inconvenience common to almost all questions of Morals. After having thus decried it by the expositions which they made of it according to their fancy, they combated it represented under those ideas under which it was easy to make it appear bizarre, ridiculous, and untenable. This soon produced the universal unleashing of all those who do not take the trouble to examine things thoroughly.

Nothing more was needed to shake many Theologians and entire Schools, who for various reasons made it an honor and a merit to abandon this doctrine. For, moreover, the question having always been problematic, there was nothing which could constrain a Theologian to defend this opinion rather than that which is opposed to it. But after all, this reflection upon the manner in which the face of Theology has changed so greatly in this regard in France is a very strong motive for suspending one's judgment upon the quality of the doctrine itself until the Church or the Holy See have declared themselves. For, finally, without doing wrong to the Doctors who combat it today, one may bring into comparison with them those who formerly defended it so unanimously and those who still defend it in several places of Europe.

The third reason of the Jesuits, which in my opinion ought to appear very strong, is that there are certain very important matters in which ordinary practice, even among the most upright people, seems scarcely capable of being justified except by the doctrine in question. These consequences, which the Jesuits envisage, cause them to go with bridle in hand and prevent them from advancing too far before the Church has spoken.

The plurality of Benefices, even supposing that the Beneficiaries make a good use of them; the determination of what is called in this matter decent maintenance in relation to their estate and quality, furnish great difficulties; and it would not be easy to show that the most regular persons commonly follow in practice, upon all this, the more probable opinion. But whatever may be the case upon this point, here are still some other examples.

Is there an unanswerable demonstration that the common practice in France touching contracts for the constitution of annuities is supported by the more probable opinion? It is not more than three centuries since there was much dispute about the nature of this Contract, and as strongly as there is dispute today upon the question of the Three Contracts. Several learned Doctors maintained that it was usurious, because the sum, having been found to be reimbursed at the end of twenty years by the interest which equals the principal, the same interest continues to be received; and when redemption takes place, the principal is paid anew; so that for twenty thousand francs given, one finds oneself to have received forty thousand francs, and very often much more.

It is also certain that, to justify this Contract, a good direction of intention is necessary, according to which one intends to purchase, by the alienation of the principal, not a certain sum of money payable every year (for one does not purchase money with money), but the right to exact every year a certain sum from the one to whom the principal has been paid. All this, not without reason, appeared delicate to those ancient Doctors, and appeared so much so to the Popes who were consulted upon it that Martin V and Callixtus III consented to permit this Contract only upon several conditions, of which there were two principal ones. The first was that the annuity should be secured by mortgage, and that the right of the one who constitutes it should be established upon a determinate property which was of a nature to produce revenue, for example upon a piece of land or upon a house. The second, that if this property should perish, the annuity should no longer be paid. Pope Pius V, after these two other Popes, and the Council of Bordeaux held in the last century, declared that these two conditions were necessary.

Nevertheless, in France these two conditions are not observed: annuities are often constituted upon all the goods and upon the person of the one who receives the principal. If the goods are lost, the annuity always continues and the person remains obligated. Is it therefore quite certain that the practice of France in this kind of contract is founded upon the more probable opinion, being contrary to the Bulls of three Popes and to the decision of a Council of France; this contract, destitute of the conditions which I have just stated, having appeared usurious to these Popes and to a Council, and having even appeared such by its nature to so many able ancient Theologians, without stronger reasons having since that time been brought forward than those which were produced then? And it is to be observed

that this opinion, upon which there is no hesitation, would scarcely be probable if one held to the definition which the common run of Casuists give of a probable opinion, in which they place a condition that it not be contrary to the decisions of the Holy See and of Councils; for here it is a question of a pure dogma of Morals, and not of those questions in which there is conflict over the bounds of spiritual authority and temporal authority. It is solely a question of knowing whether it is a contract permitted in conscience or not.

What shall I say of the contracts made by Guardians on the occasion of wards' monies, above all in Brittany, and of many others used in commerce among Merchants or among men of business? Some of them were proposed to the last Assembly of the Clergy, upon which it dared decide nothing.

Many other examples could be furnished in various matters in which it would be difficult to show that the rule of practice was the more probable opinion. And if this is not demonstrated, there is no longer any rule of conscience for acting without danger of sinning except the doctrine of the less probable opinion. It even seems that these particular cases ought to be solidly decided before the general principle were touched, for fear of falling into contradiction. All this shows that the Jesuits have reason not to go so quickly, and that they are in no way blameworthy for not yet having made a decree against the doctrine in question, and for having in this imitated the Holy See, which, despite the solicitations made at Rome, has not yet judged it fitting to declare itself. Is it laxity in Moral Theology to await the decision of the Vicar of Jesus Christ, when one is in the disposition in which the Jesuits are to follow it in everything, and when one is, like them, without obstinacy and without interest upon it?

Here, then, in a few words, is the conduct of the Jesuits upon all this. 1. Their Doctors for the most part taught this doctrine because they saw it almost generally followed in all the Catholic Schools. 2. They did not for that reason make it a sentiment of their Society to the exclusion of the other, which several among them have followed and still follow every day. 3. They were neither its authors nor its only defenders, but they maintained it with the multitude of the Theologians and with a great number of Bishops. 4. They await the authority of the Holy See in order to condemn it, because they do not believe they can do so by their own authority and without this perhaps drawing consequences for usages upon which it does not belong to them to decide. It appears that one would have to be very hard to please not to approve this conduct, and very inequitable to render the Jesuits responsible for the doctrine of probability, supposing that it were such as so many people claim.

Although the Popes did not wish to condemn the doctrine of probability, they nevertheless censured some particular propositions which have relation to this matter, and upon which the Jesuits also wish to declare their sentiment to the public. Here are these propositions.

If a Book by a modern Author appears, his opinion must be judged probable, provided that it is not established that it has been rejected as improbable by the Holy See. [Alexander VII, Proposition 28, 1665.]

It is not illicit, in the administration of the Sacraments, to follow a probable opinion touching the validity of the Sacrament, abandoning the safer, unless some law, some pact, or some danger of great harm forbids it. [Innocent XI, 1679.]

I deem it probable that a Judge may judge according to the less probable opinion.

Generally speaking, one acts prudently in following a probable opinion, however slight the probability may be, whether it is extrinsic or intrinsic, and provided that the opinion does not go outside the bounds of probability.

An infidel, relying upon a probable opinion, will be excused from his infidelity in not believing our Mysteries.

It is not permitted to follow a probable opinion, even the most probable among those which are probable. [Alexander VIII, Proposition 3, 1690.]

These are the things which the Popes condemned upon the article of probability; these are what the Jesuits also condemn, and what most of their Theologians had combated before the condemnation itself.

The Jesuits therefore declare: 1. that they condemn all these propositions; 2. that a great number of their Theologians combated them, either expressly, when they had occasion to do so in their books, or in the principles which they establish upon other occasions; 3. that after a fairly exact search, scarcely any of their Theologians have been found who taught upon any one of these points anything similar; 4. that in case anyone had done so, they condemn them in his book as in all the others in which they might be found.

There are several other propositions which the three Popes whom I have named condemned at various times, among which are the preceding ones as well as some others which I reported above. There are one hundred and forty-three in all upon various matters, partly of Morals, partly of Theology. Most, assuredly, are by no Jesuit. Books have been made in the Low Countries, even by others than Jesuits, to show the truth of this fact. Those which are by some Jesuits were taught by many other Theologians of various countries and of various Schools, Orders, and Universities; none was ever the doctrine of their Society; very few have had many defenders among the Jesuits; and if there is any one of this sort, they have had at least as many in the other Orders and in the other Schools.

But of whatever nature they may be, the Jesuits condemn them all, and bind themselves to do, as they have done, above all since the condemnation; that is to say, to take care that they are never taught with impunity in their Schools.

I do not believe that reasonable and disinterested persons, for whom alone this declaration is made, can require from the Jesuits a declaration clearer, more precise, and more universal concerning their doctrine. For we always suppose that we shall gain nothing over many others whom obstinacy, envy, jealousy, and the spirit of cabal render incapable of entering into our just defenses. Nor do I believe that they can better justify themselves than by the three propositions which were first made and proved in this writing.

The first, that the doctrine of their Society has always been that which was commonly received in the Catholic Schools and Universities. The second, that when any one of their Theologians departed from this rule which they themselves imposed, the multitude of their other Doctors was of the contrary sentiment, and that, commonly speaking, this Theologian always found in the other Schools some guide or some companion in his wandering. The third, that when any opinion was condemned by the Church or by the Holy See, no Society was more exact than that of the Jesuits in preventing it from being maintained in its Schools, and that it has rarely happened that it was done, both upon the matters which have just been set forth here and upon all the others.

So long as these three truths subsist, and the adversaries of the Jesuits do not destroy them, the reputation of their Society is sheltered against calumnies both for the past and for the present. It is by these rules that everything must be decided in this matter. The mistake or obstinacy of some individual which might be reproached to them is only a defect inevitable in all Societies in which a profession of doctrine is made, and more pardonable in that of the Jesuits than in any other, by reason of its extent and of the great number of Professors which it furnishes in all parts of Europe, and even in America and Asia.

But after this Society has so solidly justified itself before the public, it doubtless has a right to expect justice from it, and there is reason to hope that it will henceforth render it. That justice consists in not allowing oneself to be taken in by certain clamors that people deliberately raise from time to time, and in regarding them with a little more coolness. Sometimes it is a Thesis taken up without cause and without any foundation. Sometimes it is an ambiguous proposition susceptible of a very good sense, but to which pains are taken to give a bad one. It is often even a common expression in the School, the language of which it seems people would sometimes wish to forbid to the Jesuits, for whom it is no justification to speak as the others.

Sometimes it is a real fault, but one which is exaggerated, published, and caused to fall upon the whole Body, which is altogether innocent of it. But let people have at least the goodness and equity to reflect upon the conduct which the adversaries of the Jesuits have followed in their regard since the Innovators attempted to make a diversion against them by the accusation of relaxed Morals. Since that time the Books of the Jesuits, their Sermons, their Theses, their Writings, have been examined with the utmost rigor. Nothing is passed over in them; fault is found with them over everything; they are pursued as far as the Indies and as far as China. All sorts of witnesses are heard against them; suspicion alone blackens them; and to clear them, proofs as incontestable as demonstrations of Geometry are required.

A party of people disobedient to the Pope and to the King spreads all these calumnies everywhere, sometimes publicly, sometimes underhand. They have set themselves to leafing through everything that Escobar wrote in Spain, Bauny in France, Laymann in Germany, Filliucius in Italy; and from an entire Library of Spaniards, Italians, Frenchmen, Germans, and Portuguese, a proposition is drawn upon fasting, another upon the duel, another upon the proximate occasion, another upon the love of God. Collections are made of all this; they are enlarged with reflections and invectives; they are distributed everywhere. They are made to be read by young Ecclesiastics, and above all by those whom their birth destines for the Prelacy; they are caused to circulate in the Seminaries; they are spread in the Monasteries; they are placed in the hands of Ladies; the Court is filled with them. There are even the Scholars of the Jesuits to whom they are given to read; the zeal of certain Religious and certain Ecclesiastics goes so far.

After this, must one be astonished if in all places one hears speak only of the relaxed Morals of the Jesuits? Is there any Body in the Church which, being put to this trial, would not receive some injury to its reputation? If it were desired, for example, to render the Order of Saint Dominic responsible for all the propositions advanced by Cajetan, by Bannes, by Vitoria, by Soto, and by several other Doctors of this School, and if the particular sentiments of these Doctors were made to pass for the doctrine of the Order, where would the Dominicans be?

If a Bishop should take it into his head to review all these authors one after another, to make extracts of some bad propositions of Morals which escaped them, and then to make of them a censure filled with the bitterest invectives against the Order of the Dominicans, under the pretext that these Books are found in the Libraries of the Diocese and in the hands of several persons, would these Fathers not have cause to complain?

What I say of the Dominicans, I say of the Theologians of the other Congregations, of the most famous Universities; and it could be said of the Holy Fathers themselves, as I have already observed.

But what in particular would the Sorbonne say if, expressly to discredit it, it were desired to gather up all the Theses which have been maintained there, above all for some years and under certain syndicships; if the extracts from the writings of certain Professors were produced; if the approvals given by the Doctors of the Faculty to a great number of books either suspect or visibly bad were assembled; if consequences were drawn from the condemnation of some of its members by the Ecclesiastical Powers? But if forty Jesuits had signed a case of conscience as pernicious as the one which forty Doctors had signed recently, what an outcry would there not have been against the Society?

I do not say this to offend anyone; but these are examples which I bring solely to show that there is no Society in which faults, and the grossest faults, may not sometimes escape individuals in matters of doctrine, without the Body itself having to be responsible for them. I make these reflections in order to make apparent the difference which there is today in this regard between the Jesuits and the other Societies. Everything is forgotten or excused for some; everything is published, denounced, and condemned when it concerns the others. Here, it is said, it is an individual who fails without consequence; and there the whole Body is decried because of the individual.

The Prelates are wearied with Denunciations against the Jesuits, and they are never spoken to of an infinity of pernicious books and writings which are capable of corrupting everything both in faith and in morals. People go to seek a Thesis even outside the Kingdom in order to have it censured, while a great number of other bad ones are maintained before the eyes of all France, without the Pastors being warned of them. I say all this, finally, to make the public comprehend once for all the injustice which is done to a Society which, after all, edifies it and is not useless to it.

But whatever may happen, aided by the grace of God and sustained by its innocence, it will relax nothing of its zeal against novelties: too happy to suffer persecution for the interests of the Church, and to sacrifice even its honor for His, whose greater glory it has as its end to procure everywhere, even at the expense of its own.