Article V. On the System of Equiprobabilism

A little more fully must be treated here concerning the system of equiprobabilism, for this reason, that its recent favorers disapprove confessors who refuse to adhere to it. But their reason is twofold, one intrinsic, the other extrinsic. For, they say, equiprobabilism is the sole reasonable and right norm of acting, because it rightly agrees with principles and avoids all inconveniences; besides, it is unlawful to recede from the doctrine of St. Alphonsus even by a finger's breadth. This last reason, as is clear, manifestly supposes that the holy Doctor Alphonsus certainly was an equiprobabilist. Therefore three things are here briefly to be examined.

(a) Whether it is true that equiprobabilism is the sole reasonable and right norm of acting.

(b) Whether it is historically certain that St. Alphonsus was an equiprobabilist.

(c) Whether it is unlawful, the necessary conditions having been posited, to recede from St. Alphonsus even by a finger's breadth.

Before these three questions are answered, there must be recalled what we said above, n. 53, namely that there are two parts of equiprobabilism, according as today it is defended by its favorers. For they say, 1st, that equal or almost equal probability is required in favor of the opinion which stands for liberty, before that which stands for the law, so that you may be exempted from the force of the law. They say, 2nd, that equiprobabilism is applied only when the doubt is concerned with the existence of the law; for if it is concerned with the cessation of the law, one must always stand for the law. Moreover we noted in the cited place, and here it must again be repeated, that this second part regards the application of the system, but not its fundamental principle; since while several probabilists require it, some probabiliorists, among whom is Billuart, reject it. Wherefore that which the equiprobabilists establish in the first place concerning equality of probability, that alone is substantial to their system, and concerning that alone there will be discussion here. These things having been premised, let us see whether those three assumptions are certain.

I. That norm of acting certainly ought to be judged reasonable and right according to which no danger of formally sinning is incurred, and all difficulties are satisfied; but whoever acts according to probabilism not only avoids the danger of any formal sin whatsoever, but also can very well solve all difficulties which are objected, as is manifestly clear from those things which have been said above. Therefore probabilism is a reasonable and right norm of acting, and therefore it is false that this excellence belongs to equiprobabilism alone. This argument would abundantly suffice for the end which we intend here; but it is better to proceed further, since all the arguments which were brought above against probabiliorists can be urged no less against equiprobabilists. And indeed there can be urged:

(a) An argument from reason. For either equiprobabilists admit that solemn principle, an uncertain law does not oblige, or they do not admit it. If the first, how will they prove that only then is a law uncertain when equal or almost equal probability militates against it? Does not true and solid probability, wherever it is present, destroy the certainty of the opposed sentence? If the other, the reasons upon which that principle rests would have to be answered by them.

(b) An argument from authority can be urged. For those sayings of the Fathers and Scholastics, no distinction having been made, ought to be applied to a probable opinion of whatever degree, the slight alone excepted; since nowhere among them is there discussion of an opinion equally or almost equally probable. Nor should you say that they speak of this equality as if implicitly and equivalently; for it is answered that there exists no nation and there is no dictionary in which the adjective equal has the same value as true and solid.

(c) The argument from consequences can especially be urged. For would not the same most grave difficulty be had both for confessors and for penitents? Certainly the same; for equiprobabilists no less than probabiliorists require, and ought to require, that comparative judgment which very few can effect, and which is the cause of that difficulty. Would there not likewise be a perpetual fluctuation of doctrine? Do all confessors have the eyes of the mind disposed and balanced in so equal a manner that concerning the same question they make for themselves the same opinion? Wherefore St. Alphonsus, in the Dissertation edited in the year 1755, n. 17, thus argues against probabiliorists: "Such an appearance, namely of greater probability, cannot constitute a certain rule of operating, since it can deceive in many ways. For not rarely some opinion which appears more probable to one will appear less probable to another; indeed, to himself the opinion which yesterday was less probable will today appear more probable." And again, ibid., n. 42: "Some opinion which is more probable to me will often be less probable to others, and therefore the law would be particular for those only to whom that opinion would appear more probable. But this surely would be against the nature of law, which for the common good must necessarily be universal and universally proposed, lest the people who are bound to observe it be more often divided and perplexed concerning the truth to be embraced, while each preacher or confessor, from the diversity of opinions, according to his own sense would often instruct the faithful." Moreover, if you change the word more probable employed here by the holy Doctor into the word equiprobable, you have an excellent condemnation of equiprobabilism from the fluctuation of doctrine flowing from it.

Nor should you say that probabilists also are pressed by this inconvenience. For the holy Doctor responds, ibid., n. 43: "Nor is it valid to say that by following the benign sentence, deformity also can intervene, since the same opinion can seem probable to one, improbable to another. It is not denied that this can happen, but it will always be true that when some opinion is strong with solid probability and rests upon a certainly grave foundation, it will be judged probable among the greatest part of the wise; and this will already be enough for preserving the universal uniformity of observance of the law, notwithstanding that among some particular person it is not probable; for that which rarely happens does not take away universal conformity. Yet this certainly does not happen concerning the estimation of more probable opinions, in our case equiprobable opinions; because since greater or lesser probability depends upon moral motives, namely upon the judgment and weighing of reasons, which some deduce from one principle, others from another, it happens not rarely but commonly that what to one is more valid appears weaker to another." Cf. Baller., note (a), p. 60.

II. It must now be examined whether it is historically true that St. Alphonsus was an equiprobabilist. Equiprobabilists indeed affirm this, but an affirmation of this sort falls by its very mass; for if the matter stood thus, it would now follow that that norm of acting, which they say is uniquely right, had been unknown in the Church of God through several centuries, and had not been discovered before the age of St. Alphonsus - and there is no one who does not see how many inconveniences and absurd consequences this abounds in. Therefore either it must be said that equiprobabilism is not that most right system of acting, as they boast, or that St. Alphonsus is not its parent. Yet he will better attain the truth and vindicate the honor of the holy Doctor who, rejecting equiprobabilism on account of the reasons recently brought forward, denies besides that St. Alphonsus was an equiprobabilist. For:

It is certain, 1st, that St. Alphonsus in solving particular questions is a simple probabilist; for as often as he sees true and solid probability militate against the law, he solves the case in favor of liberty.

It is certain, 2nd, that he expressly teaches and confirms with marvelous erudition all the speculative principles in which, as even the adversaries confess, the whole substance, as it were, of probabilism is contained, namely: "that no one is bound to observing some law unless it is manifested to him as certain; that an uncertain law cannot induce a certain obligation; that a doubtful law does not oblige," etc. Cf. Moral. Systema, nn. 63 and 69.

It is certain, 3rd, that the holy Doctor did not teach some new system, but explained and vindicated that probabilism which the Scholastics of the more ancient age had handed down everywhere. This is clear both because he often calls these Scholastics our authors, our masters, Doctors of our sentence, and from those things which he has in the Apologia contra Patuzzi: "I have never wished nor do I wish to forge new systems," and especially from the Dissertation where he says: "Let us allow the opponents to cry out that our sentence is new and never heard in former centuries. The truth is that formerly this question was never treated in express terms; but in the year 1577 it was first discussed by Bartholomew Medina, who expressly taught the benign sentence, and from that time it was very commonly embraced, as the adversaries themselves confess."

It is certain, 4th, that St. Alphonsus explicitly taught simple probabilism. For in the Dissertation according to the Neapolitan edition of the year 1755, after, in order to avoid "ambiguities," as he says (n. 1), "and equivocations," he had premised this definition of a "more probable" opinion: "The more probable is that which rests upon a weightier foundation, but also with prudent fear of the opposite, so that the contrary is also truly probable, or gravely truthlike, although less so"; then, ibid., n. 3, he writes: "We undertake to prove the last, more benign and most common sentence: namely that it is licit to use a probable opinion even in concurrence with a more probable opinion for the law, whenever the former has a certain and grave foundation." Concerning this thesis then, ibid., n. 52, he brings forth this judgment: "Our sentence, namely that it is licit to follow a probable opinion for liberty, the more probable having been left aside, is far more probable or most probable, indeed morally or in a broad mode certain. This is clear from the arguments set forth above.... These arguments, each one indeed, have force to show the moral certainty of our sentence, so much more when conjoined together." Moreover, even the adversaries themselves concede, indeed contend, that the holy Doctor never changed his sentence. Cf. Baller., note (c), p. 64.

It is certain, 5th, that from the year 1762 the holy Doctor proposed a changed formula of the system, and defended it, polished with exquisite care, up to the end of his life. Cf. Opusculum circa usum opinionum aeque probabilium; Theologia Moralis, editions 7, 8, 9; letters, 28 March 1767; 25 May 1767; November 1768; 8 August 1769. "I say first, if the opinion which stands for the law seems certainly more probable, we are altogether bound to follow it; nor can we then embrace the opposite which stands for liberty." n. 54, edition 9. Let the reader consult the letters just now enumerated concerning this matter, and he will find the reason perpetually recurring, namely because the law in that case is sufficiently promulgated. Editions 6 and 7: "I say certainly because when the opinion for the law is certainly and without any hesitation more probable, then that opinion cannot be anything but notably more probable. And in that case the safer opinion will no longer be doubtful, understanding this of doubt strictly taken, but it is morally or quasi-morally certain; at least it can no longer be called strictly doubtful, since it has for itself a certain foundation that it is true. Whence then it happens that the less safe opinion, which lacks a certain foundation, remains either slightly or at least doubtfully probable with respect to the safer; and therefore it is not prudence but imprudence to wish to embrace it." n. 55. Cf. Homo Apostolicus, n. 31. - "For as often as it expressly appears to the intellect that truth stands much more for the law than for liberty, then the will cannot prudently and without fault adhere to the less safe part": Theol. Mor., editions 6 and 7, n. 55. "Which, the less probable, in my judgment is in no way probable": letter, 28 March 1767. "I say third that when two equiprobable opinions concur, although the less safe opinion cannot be held, since, as we have said, probability alone - note, probability alone - by no means furnishes a firm foundation for operating licitly; nevertheless that opinion which stands for liberty, since it has equal probability as the opposite which stands for the law, indeed introduces a grave doubt whether there exists a law which prohibits the action, and therefore it can by no means be said to be sufficiently promulgated; and therefore, since in that case it is not promulgated, it cannot oblige; so much the more because an uncertain law cannot induce a certain obligation." Theol. Mor., edition 9, n. 56.

It seems indubitable, 6th, that the certainly more probable opinion of the later formula is not the more probable opinion of the earlier formula; and that the less probable opinion of the later formula is not the less probable opinion of the earlier. Thus the later formula is proved: because an opinion certainly more probable for the law... cannot be anything but notably more probable. And in that case the safer opinion will no longer be doubtful, strictly doubtful, but is morally certain. But thus the earlier formula is proved: when two opinions are present, one more and the other less probable, then the comparison is not made between truth and falsity, so that if the less probable is chosen, for that reason falsity is not preferred to truth; but the comparison is made between two apparent truths, of which, although one may seem greater than the other, nevertheless each seems great, so that each can be true; concerning which matter, at the same time that the more probable opinion appears more truthlike as true, it appears truthlikely false, and the opposite opinion appears probably true. Hence the more probable opinion cannot be called the true opinion; otherwise the more probable opinion would be manifest truth, which is repugnant, since manifest truth is properly knowledge, not opinion. Dissertation, year 1755, n. 17.

Therefore it is false to say that the more probable opinion is morally certain with respect to the less probable.... Because the more probable opinion is not morally certain unless it so exceeds the probability of the other that the latter appears improbable, or at least slightly probable. But otherwise, if it still seems to retain a grave motive by which it can be true. Ibid., n. 13.

"Nor is it valid to say that when some opinion appears more probable, then that greater probability declares the law and exhibits knowledge of the law: for knowledge, as is clear to everyone, imports certain notice concerning the existence of the law, but an opinion, even a more probable one, since it does not remove prudent fear of the opposite, is as far as heaven from knowledge, which, every prudent fear having been excluded, bears certainty before itself. Therefore when in some question there is no knowledge of the law, then the law either is not present, or at least does not oblige." Dissertation, 1755, n. 33.

Therefore in the later formula the certainly more probable, notably more probable sentence is morally certain; in the earlier formula the more probable opinion is not morally certain; in the later formula the less probable opinion lacks a certain foundation, remains either slightly or at least doubtfully probable, and for the holy Doctor is in no way probable; on the contrary, in the earlier formula the less probable opinion, because this opinion is by no means destitute of its grave probability, must not be called improbable. Therefore, just as it seems certain that the certainly more probable opinion of the later formula is distinguished from the more probable opinion of the earlier, so likewise it seems certain that the less probable opinion of the later is distinguished by the whole heavens from the less probable opinion of the earlier.

To the difficulty arising from this, that the greater probability destroys the lesser and that this by that very fact becomes improbable, he replies: "But our authors rightly respond that it is false that greater probability destroys the lesser, unless that greater probability is drawn from the same principle, or unless the more probable opinion has for itself so convincing an argument that the contrary seems truly improbable, or no longer gravely and certainly probable." Dissertation 1755, n. 13. The more probable opinion is not morally certain unless it so exceeds the probability of the other that the latter appears improbable, or at least slightly probable.

In this Dissertation the holy Doctor distinguishes a twofold more probable opinion: one namely by which the opposite becomes truly improbable or at least slightly probable; the other, truly more probable, which does not destroy the probability of the opposite, but leaves it by its own force, as resting upon a grave foundation. Concerning this latter he treats in the earlier formula, Dissertation 1755. And indeed to affirm that the holy Doctor in one and the same reckoning holds every more probable opinion is to reject his clearest words, which is clear from this very place.

It is certain, 7th, that the holy Doctor, for proving his sentence concerning equiprobable opinions, cites almost all, one by one, those authors whom he had cited for proving the sentence concerning the liceity of action according to a less probable opinion in concurrence with a more probable one; indeed it is certain that he appeals to the same citations of the same authors, to prove the sentence concerning equiprobable opinions to which he had appealed when proving the sentence concerning a less probable opinion in concurrence with a more probable one.

The holy Doctor refers the reader to the Opusculum de usu moderato opinionum aequiprobabilium, Mor. Sys., n. 79. But in this little work, edited in the year 1765, for proving his sentence, he cites around one hundred thirty-six authors; and he adds: neither can it be believed that through so many years in which this sentence of theirs was common, God had abandoned His Church by permitting pastors and sheep commonly to follow a false and detestable doctrine, as the adversaries call it. These things St. Alphonsus says in that little work, chapter V, 6.

In the Dissertation of the year 1755 he cites from these one hundred thirty authors eighty-three; and the same places are praised in each place. Come now: these eighty-three authors are cited for proving the more benign and most common sentence, "namely that it is licit to use a probable opinion even in concurrence with a more probable one for the law, whenever the former has a certain and grave foundation," n. 3; "it cannot be denied... that for the space of around one hundred years, or at least up to the middle of the seventeenth century, as the same opponents confess, the benign sentence was received by all the Doctors," n. 9; "shall we think that God at that time abandoned the Church, permitting the faithful everywhere to be deceived by this error so pernicious, as they themselves shout?" Therefore indeed the later formula of St. Alphonsus does not differ in doctrine from the earlier formula. For those eighty-three authors, of whom very many are classic authors, already dead, did not change their sentence between the year 1755 and the year 1765; nor do the same cited places pour forth a different meaning; and certainly the doctrine was clear and perspicuous: namely, it is licit to use a probable opinion even in concurrence with a more probable one for the law, whenever the former has a certain and grave foundation; and this doctrine was common through those same hundred years, nor was it erroneous. And therefore, concerning his doctrine, St. Alphonsus in each stage, in the year 1755, 1765, and thereafter, practically says: My sentence is the sentence of these authors; it is clear from the same places; it is common. Therefore the sentence contained in each formula does not differ: it is one and the same, and it is this: it is licit to follow a probable opinion even in concurrence with a more probable one for the law, whenever the former has a certain and grave foundation. And if this sentence is not true, and indeed in the obvious sense of the words, the reasoning of St. Alphonsus requires this conclusion: those authors erred, the cited places contain false doctrine, and God abandoned the Church.

It is certain, 8th, that the holy standard-bearer of the Church, that he might snatch the very weapons from his adversaries, wrote a dissertation to be substituted, in his book Homo Apostolicus, for the dissertation published in the old style and with the old terminology. Letter, Nov. 20, 1769. Indeed, concerning the new emendation of the Theologia Moralis, he says, Nov. 27, 1777:

"I am certain, according to the mode of thinking now prevailing, that this recent Moral will be more accepted and more sought after than the old." First, to remove every ambiguity and to ward off the accusation of laxism, in his new formula he says: "if the opinion which stands for the law seems certainly more probable, we are altogether bound to follow it"; "For acting licitly probability alone does not suffice, but moral certitude concerning the honesty of the action is required"; "When two equiprobable opinions concur," the opinion which stands for liberty, since it has equal probability as the opposite which stands for the law, indeed introduces a grave doubt whether there exists a law which prohibits the action, and therefore it can by no means be said to be sufficiently promulgated; and therefore, since in that case it has not been promulgated, it cannot oblige, etc.

It is certain, 9th. Come now, from the history of that time it is gathered, 1st, that probabilists were accused of laxity, as if they said that any foundation whatever, however slight, for the sentence in favor of liberty was sufficient for acting against the law; that this accusation was constantly moved against them; 2nd, that the mode of speaking of the theologians of that time was distinct from the common mode, at least as regards the sense of the word "more probable": "Yet the distinguished Fr. Gazzaniga excellently observes that here that sentence is not called more probable which has some, even small and minimal, excess of probability over the other: for in morals, as St. Thomas says, reason takes what is small as almost nothing, but that sentence which surpasses the other by many degrees in probability." - Luby, Theol. Mor. 1, p. 191. "I have not contended nor do I contend to forge new systems," says St. Alphonsus, "and I well know that no probabilist of solid doctrine hands down as licit the use of an opinion slightly or doubtfully probable. But because many probabilists say indiscriminately that it is licit to follow a less probable opinion when it has some foundation from reason or from authority, for this reason I wished to distinguish, by establishing that it is not licit to follow the less safe opinion when there is a notable and certain excess of probability for the safer one, because then the less safe opinion cannot be called certainly probable, nor the law in such a case doubtful with a doubt strictly so called; but when the excess for the opinion which stands for the law is small and doubtful, then the opinion which stands for liberty can rightly be called equiprobable." Now at that time the theologians who, in the concurrence of two equally probable opinions, of which one favors the law and is safe, the other favors liberty and is called not safe, teach that the not safe opinion which favors liberty against the law can licitly be chosen, the safer one being left aside, even in that case where the latter is more probable, are called, Luby being witness (ibid.), "benign probabilists"; those who oppose them with all their strength are called probabiliorists or anti-probabilists.

St. Alphonsus followed until death the distinguished authors of the Society of Jesus, whose fortunes he could, not without reason, fear for himself and for his own glorious Congregation. Jansenists, probabiliorists, rigorists attacked him as a friend of the Society. Almost alone he battled down and routed Jansenism and the more rigid sentence of Catholics. As a young man and as an old man, he was the incomparable defender of the Church against all enemies. The strong saint conquered. By changing an ambiguous form, he snatched the weapons from the hands of his enemies. They could not accuse him of laxism. He employed their mode of speaking, with clear distinctions introduced, lest truth should suffer anything. The probabiliorists themselves persecuted him as a probabilist. He repelled laxism from his sentence. With one and the same reckoning he held, as often historically is the fact, a probable and an equiprobable sentence. He left behind, as something perpetually exposed to taunts, the determinative word "less"; he never left behind what is solidly probable. Behold the words of this man, a Doctor of the Church: "I believe that I have now demonstrated ... the principle: 'A doubtful law does not oblige'; for, as St. Thomas and all theologians affirm, a law not sufficiently promulgated does not oblige. When two probable opinions are mutually opposed to each other, it is not a law that is promulgated, but a doubt whether a law exists. Therefore when two opinions are equiprobable, the law does not oblige, because it is doubtful." Letter to Father Blasucci, Nov. 1768. The major and minor of that syllogism are very customary in St. Alphonsus. But the conclusion is about equiprobable opinions. Shall we say that the holy Doctor erred in logic? Far be it. Practically, equiprobable and probable sentences are in the same reckoning. Hence the holy Doctor concludes his moral system, II, 82: "Then it is concluded that unless the opinion which stands for the law is either certain or certainly more probable, as we said from the beginning, we are not bound to follow it." By repeated turns the sentence certainly etc. more probable is named by him a morally certain sentence. This is the system of the holy Doctor: If the sentence is either certain or morally certain, then you are bound to follow it; in all other cases you are free. Namely, all other sentences are to be held, for use, as equiprobable. Nor do we admit that St. Alphonsus holds the more probable sentence, as such, to be obligatory, because perpetually in every period he requires knowledge, in order that someone be bound by the law. The quality of being more probable as such gives only opinion. But it can happen in practical matters that, although there is not absolute evidence, the force of the argument on one side is so great that solid probability is absent from the other side. And this sentence is morally certain. Perhaps in this explanation of ours of the great Doctor we err; but even if we err, we shall not recede from him unless we have received his paternal blessing.

III. Since from those things which have recently been said, it is not certain, to say the least, that St. Alphonsus was an equiprobabilist, it could seem superfluous here to examine whether it is wrong to recede even by a finger's breadth from his doctrine; for even if this question were answered affirmatively, an argument cannot thence be taken for imposing the system of equiprobabilism upon all confessors. For it would be a great and intolerable wrong to impose some norm of acting upon others for this reason, that a great authority favors this norm, when one greatly doubts the very existence of this authority. Yet it will be useful to indicate briefly what must be held concerning this matter, on account of certain particular questions to be solved below.

That the authority of St. Alphonsus the Doctor in moral matters is very great, and that it regularly suffices for being loosed from the law, there is no one among today's probabilists who either denies or does not know. I have said regularly, because the case must always be excepted in which some absolutely certain argument is had to the contrary, as we know happened concerning the obligation of denouncing a confessor consenting to a woman soliciting in confession. For concerning this obligation, on the one hand the holy Doctor says that the sentence which denies it seems more probable, and on the other hand a certain decree of the Holy Inquisition, solemnly approved by Benedict XIV in the constitution Sacramentum Poenitentiae, but wholly unknown to St. Alphonsus, requires that denunciation be made. But if someone should wish to infer from the various approvals and praises given to the works of the holy Doctor that in no case ever is it licit for a theologian to recede from some opinion of his which binds, when either solid reason or the grave authority of other Doctors persuades that the severer opinion is such, and provided that it be done with due moderation, he certainly would neither attain the mind of the Holy See in approving the writings of saints, nor rightly understand or apply the very principles and practice of the holy Doctor. For the mind of the Holy See is not that by that formula "nothing worthy of reprehension" and others of this sort, the writings of saints and Doctors of the Church should have so great an approval that each and every sentence of those writings is by this very fact to be said to be true; for this would be, as it were, to canonize their books, which has neither been done concerning St. Alphonsus or St. Thomas, nor ever will be done. That the matter stands entirely thus Benedict XIV showed at length, and St. Alphonsus himself confirmed it practically; for in solving particular questions he more than once, having left aside the sentence of St. Thomas, adhered to another, relying on the authority of other Doctors and on solid reasons, as they seemed to him, although the approvals of the writings of St. Thomas have certainly been most illustrious and altogether singular. Indeed even the Sacred Penitentiary, to the question: "Whether a professor of sacred theology can safely follow and profess the opinions which Blessed Alphonsus Liguori professes in his Theologia Moralis?" responded, 5 July 1831, "AFFIRMATIVELY, without however judging that those should therefore be reprehended who follow opinions handed down by other approved authors." - Cf. Bened. XIV, de Servor. Dei beatif. et Beator. canoniz. lib. 2, cap. 34. - Baller. vol. 2, note (a) p. 549. - Revue des sciences eccles. vol. 16, p. 302; and vol. 30, pp. 340 and 411. - Etudes relig. etc. vol. 4, p. 78. - Bouquillon, nn. 309 and seq.