Article Third. On the System of St. Alphonsus.

250. Historical notes. 1. Some equiprobabilists claim that St. Alphonsus is the inventor of a new system, which supplies the uniquely right norm of acting; but this system is equiprobabilism itself. But how absurd this affirmation is, is evident: for from it there would follow that the uniquely right norm of acting had been unknown in the Church up to St. Alphonsus. For this reason it must be said either that St. Alphonsus is not the inventor of a new system, or that that system is not the only norm of acting rightly. Besides, from history it is established that there were some theologians (Amort, Rassler, Ant. Mayr) who already before St. Alphonsus set forth the system of probabilism in an equiprobabilistic formula. Finally St. Alphonsus himself declares in the Apologia: "Therefore I never wished, nor do I wish, to forge new systems."

2. In the first periods St. Alphonsus adhered to probabiliorism, which he had received from his teacher; soon, however, in hearing confessions and rightly understanding that a probabiliorist cannot fruitfully undertake the direction of souls, he passed over to probabilism, which he vigorously defended against the probabiliorists, and indeed to pure probabilism, which the more ancient moralists defended. To defend this probabilism he composed a double dissertation: For the moderate use of a probable opinion in the concurrence of a more probable [opinion], one in the year 1749, the other in the year 1755, and according to the principles of this probabilism he composed his moral work, which had already been published five times before he himself changed the formula of the moral system.

3. From the year 1762 onward he changed the principle of probabilism into the formula which the equiprobabilists almost use: when the less safe opinion is equally or almost equally probable, someone can licitly follow it (n. 55); and: where the opinion for the law seems certainly more probable, we are held to follow it, otherwise, however, if it is of the same weight as the opinion for liberty (n. 67), more often asserting that he was not a follower of probabilism. Wherefore it must be conceded that the formula by which St. Alphonsus later sets forth his system differs from the common formula of probabilism.

a. To make this change he was induced especially by these reasons: a. because the formula by which at the beginning he had proposed probabilism: it is lawful to follow the less probable in the concurrence of the more probable, was ambiguous; b. because by the new formula he thought he could more effectively repel the attacks of adversaries and forestall the abuses of laxists; c. because only by this way could he avoid the prohibition of his books and the suppression of the congregation founded by him, which was to be feared on the part of the government.

b. They dispute whether the contradiction which in reality exists between the earlier and later writings of the holy doctor is true or only apparent. Not even the equiprobabilists are of the same opinion in this matter. The more recent ones (Marc, Gaude) think that the holy doctor later revoked the probabilism to which he had adhered at the beginning and taught equiprobabilism; but the older ones (Haringer, Vindiciae alphons.) think that St. Alphonsus never changed his opinion concerning the moral system, but always adhered to equiprobabilism, at the beginning indeed implicitly and doubtfully, but afterward explicitly and confidently. Most probabilists, with Ballerini leading the way, themselves judge that the holy doctor never changed his opinion concerning the moral system, but always adhered to simple probabilism, which in the earlier writings he lucidly sets forth and defends, and in the later writings only apparently retracts, because he proposes it by an equiprobabilistic formula.

Note. Concerning the genuine system of St. Alphonsus there will always be dispute, because in the later writings of the holy Doctor there occur several texts which supply arguments to each part. Whatever may be about this matter, two things are certain: that St. Alphonsus in the first periods adhered to simple probabilism, and that he composed his moral theology at that time when he was attached to probabilism; and therefore his moral theology is a probabilistic work. Since the system of probabilism is not founded on the authority of St. Alphonsus, the truth of probabilism is independent of the opinion of St. Alphonsus concerning the moral system.

¹ Ballerini, Dissertatio de genuina s. Alphonsi sententia circa usum opinionis probabilis. (Opus theol. morale^3 I. Appendix I. p. 632 ss.) Arendt, Crisis apologeticae dissertationis P. de Caigny C. SS. R. (Friburgi. Herder. 1897). Noldin, Die Briefe des hl. Alphons von Liguori und dessen Moralsystem (Zeitschrift fur kath. Theolog. 1896) S. 73 ff. Meffert, Der hl. Alphons von Liguori (Mainz. Kirchheim. 1901) I: Die moralth. Schriften des hl. Al. v. L. S. 19-136.