Chapter VI: The Light of Christ

PHILOSOPHERS are our professional thinkers.

It is their duty to make themselves acquainted with all the newest knowledge, and to tell us what to think of things in its light. Especially in times of change and upheaval like the present it might be thought that philosophy would be able to guide us safely out of our difficulties. One might expect that philosophy would have its answer to those deeper questions on the solution of which all else depends. What are we? What is this strange universe in which we find ourselves placed? Obviously, everything is in motion; where is it going to? What does it all mean? We cannot give a satisfactory answer to the smaller difficulties of everyday life till we have found a satisfactory answer to those great and fundamental questions. Can philosophy give a satisfactory answer to them?

With this question in my mind I obtained a copy of Contemporary British Philosophy, a book issued under the editorship of Professor Muirhead. It contains contributions on the fundamental problems of philosophy by sixteen leading British philosophers. After reading the book I laid it aside with disappointment. There is no hope in philosophy. It has not pleased God to save his people by philosophy.

One after another the writers assert that they have nothing that is certain to tell us. At most they can offer more or less plausible views and opinions. Many expressly affirm that the attainment of truth and certainty is impossible for the human mind. Apparently by way of warning, the editor tells us that philosophies are not like scientific discourses, they are rather comparable to the creations of the artist and the poet, embodying his idea, expressing his feeling, instinct with his personality. In other words, philosophies are subjective impressions of truth rather than the very truth itself. With great caution Lord Haldane tells us in his essay that “on the whole he thinks that Hegel has come nearer to the ultimately true view than anyone since the ancient Greeks.” There is not much to be hoped for from the Pantheistic idealism of Germany. Mr. Bertrand Russell says bluntly: “If we could hope for certainty in philosophy, the matter would be otherwise, but so far as I can see such a hope would be chimerical.” Mr. Carveth Read says emphatically: “Every student of the history of philosophy must have learnt that whatever he thinks it is probably wrong.”

Mr. Schiller affirms: “Thus no truth is eternal; every truth has its day. But this does not matter so long as sufficient for the day is the truth thereof,” On such a fundamental question as to whether the soul is material like the body or immaterial, Mr. Lloyd Morgan affirms that the affirmative view and the negative are alike incapable of proof.

If, then, we are to believe these experts, we cannot trust to philosophy for guidance in the many doubts and difficulties in which we are involved. If the blind lead the blind they will both fall into the ditch. To tell the truth, modern philosophy makes no pretension to be the guide of life. The modern philosopher is not the blustering braggart of the time of St Augustine or even of Molière. He has learnt modesty. So Professor Muirhead assures us.

But if philosophy is incapable of acting as the guide of life, perhaps science will do. This is what some scientists used to assert, and some of them occasionally re-echo the claim still. However, if we give the matter a moment’s thought we shall perceive that physical science is less capable of acting as the guide of life than philosophy. It is infected with the same or with greater uncertainty. The conclusions of science are only provisional and hypothetical, they are not final and certain. They are relative and progressive, and, in fact, are changed every few years. Moreover, the ultimate questions on the answers to which the conduct of life depends lie outside the sphere of physical science. Physical science collects facts and phenomena, compares them, classifies them, and thus discovers empirical laws. It cannot tell us whence we came, or whither we are going, or for what purpose we are here, and without clear and certain knowledge on those questions there is no guidance for human life. Where, then, are we to look?

There is only one clear and satisfactory answer to that question. Early on Holy Saturday morning, while as yet there were few in the church, the Catholic Church gave that answer in unfaltering tones. With all the solemnity which the Catholic Church knows so well how to use, a procession entered the church, headed by the Cross. A triple branched candle was carried in the procession. One branch was lighted at the entrance from the fire which had been struck from the flint and solemnly blessed. “The Light of Christ,” sang out the deacon. All knelt and then moved forward up the aisle. In the middle of the church the second branch was lit; again the deacon sang out, “The Light of Christ,” and again all knelt. The procession then moved forward to the altar steps; the third branch was lit; a third time the deacon sang out, “The Light of Christ,” and a third time all knelt. By such striking ceremonial the Catholic Church does all she can to bring home to all the saving knowledge of the only true Light of the World and Guide of human life.

Of course, Catholics do not deny that philosophy can attain to a certain knowledge of ultimate truths, but they also maintain that revelation is necessary in order that those truths may be known easily, with certainty, and without error by all men.