ROOT CAUSES OF "SOCIAL QUESTION" :: LIBERALS REPUDIATE DIVINE AUTHORITY IN SOCIAL LIFE.
Unchristian liberalism began in England and spread to the Continent where it paved the way for the French Revolution. It is the direct outcome of the principles of Protestantism and repudiates divine authority in public and social life, which, according to its ideals, should be organised and conducted as if God did not exist. Liberal teaching rejects or ignores the whole supernatural order, including divine revelation, a divinely instituted Church and man's predestination to eternal life.
BY E. CAHILL, S.J.
Unchristian Liberalism is a direct outcome of the principles of Protestantism. Beginning in England, it spread into France where it prepared the way for the Revolution (1789), after which it gradually impressed itself on the public life of nearly every country in Europe and America. Liberal principles and policy are the root causes of the evils comprised under what is usually called the "Social Question"; and are at present the greatest obstacle to social prosperity and peace. Resting on an assumption of man's innate independence of any authority or rule of conduct outside himself, Liberal teaching rejects or ignores the whole supernatural order, including divine revelation, a divinely instituted church, and man's predestination to eternal life. Without formally committing themselves to a positive denial of God's existence or His possible claims on men in their individual capacity, Liberals repudiate all divine authority in public and social life, which, according to their ideals, should be organised and conducted as if God did not exist; much less will they take account of the teaching of our Divine Lord, or acknowledge the authority of the church which He founded. Absolute and unlimited freedom (and by freedom the Liberals mean licence) including freedom of thought, of religion and of conscience; unchecked freedom of speech and of the Press, freedom in political and social institutions, is according to Liberal principles man's inalienable right. These un-Christian principles, which, by their repudiation of divine authority are in opposition even to the natural law, are applied by Liberals to the moral, political and economic spheres. Modern systems of statecraft, of civic organisation, of international relations, etc., have been shaped largely under the influence of their principles. Hence Liberalism tends strongly to reproduce in society the most repulsive features of pagan civilisation.
"Put Out the Lights of Heaven."
Freemasonry, permeated and reinforced by international Judaism, has been the strongest driving force behind the Liberalist movement during the past two centuries. Socialism, which is opposed to many of the economic and political principles of Liberalism, is in harmony with it in its materialistic view of life, and in its assumption of man's emancipation from a supernatural or divine law. The Catholic Church, with its hierarchical constitution, and its God-given power of authoritative teaching, forms the only effective barrier against the progress of Liberalism. This fact has always been frankly recognised by the Liberal leaders. Voltaire's impious cry: "Ecrasez l'Infame" (Crush and destroy the unsightly monster, viz., the Catholic Church) has been re-echoed down to our own day by Voltaire's disciples, who openly proclaim it their aim to "put out the lights of Heaven," and who would fain believe that Catholic principles and authority, even in Ireland, are doomed to the fate of "icebergs in warm water." The words of Charles Bradlaugh (d. 1891), a professed atheist and one of the founders of the present secularist or extreme Liberalist movement in Britain, are equally significant: — "One element of danger in Europe is the approach of the Roman Catholic Church towards meddling in political life . . . There is danger to freedom of thought, to freedom of speech, to freedom of action. The great struggle in this country (England) will not be between Free Thought and the Church of England . . . but between Free Thought and Rome."
Vague and Intangible.
In order to convey a general but connected idea of modern Liberalism which, like Protestantism, is often vague and somewhat intangible, partaking more of the nature of a spirit permeating modern society than of a definite and consistent system, we shall give a brief sketch first of intellectual Liberalism, often called Rationalism or Naturalism, which forms the philosophic ground-work of the movement; secondly, of political Liberalism or Secularism upon whose principles the constitutions of most modern states are largely modelled, and finally of economic Liberalism. which reached its apogee in the 19th century, and is closely allied with modern capitalism.
REPUDIATION OF REVELATION.
The spirit and tendency of the un-Christian Humanism of the 15th century, and still more the principle put forward by the 16th century Reformers that every individual has the right of interpreting divine revelation according to his own judgment without the aid of a teaching Church, opened the way, first to a repudiation of all supernatural revelation, and then to Atheism and Materialism. During the second half of the 17th century there arose in England a school of Freethinkers and Deists whose teachings without spreading, for the time being, to any great extent in England itself, exerted much influence in France and the Continental countries. A few of these Deists remained nominally Christian, but most rejected completely all supernatural religion; and some threw doubt even on the existence of God. Among the best known were John Locke, author of the "Essay on the Human Understanding." (d. 1704). John Hobbes, author of the "Leviathan"; Collins, Roland, Tyndal, Charles Blount, Lord Bolingbroke, etc., and later on, Hume and Berkeley. Protestant Germany gave birth to a similar Rationalistic school, founded on the teachings of Leibnitz, Wolf and others, whose names were afterwards overshadowed by that of Emmanuel Kant, the greatest of German Rationalistic philosophers, and the real founder of the modern German Rationalistic School.
FRANCE CENTRE OF MOVEMENT.
France, however, was, or soon became, the real centre of the Naturalist movement. The ground had been prepared there by the Gallican and Jansenistic propaganda of the preceding generation and by the strong Rationalistic tendencies of Descartes' philosophy. But the principal cause of the rapid spread of the movement was the moral corruption which had eaten, like a canker, into the wealthy classes, the aristocracy, and even the clergy. Voltaire brought from England the doctrines of the English Freethinkers and Deists, and with Jean Jacques Rousseau, became the most powerful apostle of the new ideas. Soon a whole galaxy of brilliant writers appeared, filled with the spirit of Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau and Voltaire. Ecclesiastical authority, religion, revelation all the cherished ideals and principles of Christianity, were now persistently held up to ridicule in poetry, romance, drama, letters, historical and philosophical treatises, written mostly in a brilliant and very attractive style. The extreme Rationalistic doctrine, which denies the existence of God, and the immortality of the human soul, rejects the moral law, and proclaims war against all authority, was summarised in the celebrated "Encyclopedie." This monumental work, the first of its kind, appeared about the middle of the 18th century, under the editorship of Diderot and d'Alembert, and immediately secured unprecedented popularity. In the "Encyclopedie" all kinds of subjects were treated and discussed, sometimes with a superficial veneer of fairness and impartiality, but always with the underlying purpose of discrediting Christianity. Diderot, in whose mind the virtue of chastity is only the result of ignorant prejudice, sketched an ideal society whose perfection lies in the complete gratification of the sexual passions, while the professed ambition of Naigeon, one of the Diderot's disciples, was to "strangle the last of the priests with the entrails of the last of the kings." This anti-religious campaign in France, resulting in the excesses and religious persecution associated with the French Revolution, was the first great effort of the Liberal anti-Christian revolt, which has continued to spread and gain strength down to our own day.
EXTREME AND SELFISH INDIVIDUALISM.
During the 19th century the Rationalistic movement manifested itself in the pseudo-philosophic theories of Pantheism, Materialism and Positivism, culminating in the Modernism, Neo-Gnosticism, Theosophism, Christian Scientism, etc., of the present day. The movement has gathered into its wake most of the perverted intellectual forces of Europe outside the Catholic Church. It has spread more or less into every country, but has taken deepest hold in France, Britain, the Protestant portions of Germany, the United States of North America, and the British Dominions. The Pantheistic philosophy of Kant and Hegel in Germany, tending to make each individual a kind of God unto himself, and setting up actual fact, the "fait accompli," as the sole criterion of what is reasonable and right, leads, when applied to social life, to a glorification of brute force, and contains besides a philosophic ground-work for the most extreme and selfish individualism. The whole philosophy of Materialism, as propounded by Haeckel, Huxley, Spencer and others, and especially the theories of the Evolutionists, including those of "struggle for life" and "the survival of the fittest," as well as Nietzche's theory of the "superman," for whose sake other men are born to toil, have similar practical applications.
POSITIVISM.
Positivism, which was first put forward by Auguste Comte (d. 1857), was widely adopted by French and English Rationalists, such as J. S. Mill, during the second half of the century. In this system a new deity is set up for men to worship and serve. That deity is none other than Humanity. Positivism, while encouraging a vague and ineffective philanthropy or humanitarianism, has a predominant tendency, like all forms of Rationalism, to an extreme and unnatural individualism. For a Positivist of the average type of character tends to regard himself as representing Humanity, and consequently to consider himself, and not God, as the summit and centre of the Universe, towards whose glorification all his interests and efforts most converge. Modernism, Neo-Gnosticism, Kabbalism, Theosophism, Spiritism, etc., are at present the most dangerous and insidious form of Rationalism and Naturalism. The Modernists, who aimed at remaining within the Church's fold while working to undermine her teaching, were condemned by Pius X. in 1903. They deny or strive to whittle down and explain away by specious reasoning everything supernatural, including miracles, divine revelation, supernatural grace, etc. Neo-Gnosticism essays to get rid of a deity distinct from man and to whom man is responsible. Hence they deny the dogma of creation. All things, according to their philosophy, are in some way or other emanations of the divine essence: hence man himself is practically identified with the deity, so that whatever he thinks or does must be right and good.
DIRECT INFLUENCE OF THE DEVIL.
Neo-Gnostic philosophy is practically the same as that of the ancient Gnostics so often referred to in the New Testament and the writings of the early Fathers of the Church. This philosophy has reappeared at different times in the history of the Church assuming various shapes, but remaining always substantially the same, and invariably tending to supply an apparent justification for the unrestrained gratification of man's worst passions. It was under varying forms the underlying philosophy of the Manichaeans of the 5th century, of the Albigenses of the 12th century, of the Waldenses, etc., of later times. It was the heresy, too, of which the Templars of the 15th century were rightly or wrongly accused. Gnosticism and Neo-Gnosticism are closely associated with the occult practices and beliefs of certain pre-Christian secretaries of the East which have always attracted a certain type of depraved minds, and seem to show strong indications of the direct influence of the evil one. Gnosticism and its different manifestations are not improbably the heresy or philosophy to which St. Paul is said to refer in his First Epistle to Timothy: "In the last times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to spirits of error and doctrines of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy and having the conscience seared."*
The Kabbalists and Theosophists are closely associated with the Neo-Gnostics, and their theories are only different manifestations of the same desire to free man from all supernatural law, and even from the rule and authority of God. Kabbalism, which betrays the Jewish influence in the modern Naturalistic movement, would found its Rationalistic doctrines on ancient Jewish tradition. Theosophy relies for all knowledge, and especially for knowledge of the deity, upon some kind of interior revelation of illumination, the result of the study and contemplation of secret rites and symbols. It is closely allied to Brahminism and Buddhism, and tends to teach some kind of universal faith which would be as it were, a common denominator in which all religions and creeds would agree. For according to the Theosophists, all religions of all times, including Christianity, are but different manifestations of the one true religion, which the Divine Wisdom reveals under varying forms suited to different times, places, and persons.
TENDENCY TOWARDS DESTRUCTION.
All these phases of Naturalism are closely associated with the present day Judaeo-Masonic movement, whose aim and object is the destruction of Christianity. The propagation of the Neo-Gnostic pseudo-philosophy, as well as that of the Kabbalists, the Illuminists, the Theosophists, the Spiritists, etc., is in fact the most dangerous phase of the war now waged throughout the world against the Church by the Masonic and Jewish sectaries. Their philosophy cuts deeper into Christian life and affects more fatally the Christian organism of society than their purely political and governmental activities, as it tends to destroy the very foundations of all Christian morality and belief.
* I. Tim. I.V., 1-2.
Catholic Advocate (Brisbane, Qld. 1927,)http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article258727750
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