HUMANI GENERIS

«HUMANI GENERIS». — Encyclical of Pius XII, dated 12 Aug. 1950, concerning false opinions that threaten to subvert the foundations of Catholic doctrine (AAS, 42 [1950], pp. 561–78).

modernism (v.), which has its roots in the divorce between reason and faith, born in the age of humanism and matured through the Enlightenment, encyclopedism, and Kantian criticism, from which liberalism, Marxism, and rationalism sprang. Toward the end of the nineteenth century the conflict grew sharper, and the problem of a reconciliation presented itself. The First Vatican Council traced the path to a just solution: from the divine to the human through the Church. Modernism, on the other hand, wished to proceed from the human to the divine without the Church. And this was its ruin. The historic encyclical Pascendi (v.) brought the crisis to an end, freeing Christian thought from grave danger. But in recent years, here and there, within the vast field of sacred culture, motives, attitudes, and tendencies have emerged that bear an evident affinity with the modernist crisis and constitute a new source of unease and a new danger.

Pius XII had an immediate and precise perception of the danger, and in the encyclical «H. g.» diagnosed the disease in the process of developing and prescribed effective remedies, identifying above all the directions taken by modern culture in universal evolutionism, existentialism, and historicism, which lead to the denial or devaluation of the absolute in being and in thought, in favor of a contingentism, positivism, and relativism that make metaphysics and therefore theology impossible.

In the face of these threatening currents, the Pope does not decree the isolation of Catholic culture; rather, he urges scholars to acquaint themselves with the new doctrines, which raise new problems requiring deeper study and often contain seeds of truth. But he deplores the imprudence of certain Catholics who, eager to keep up to date, surrender themselves to a false irenicism, compromising the integrity of the faith and of the entire traditional doctrine of the Church.

There follows a penetrating analysis of morbid tendencies in theology, in philosophy, and in the borderland with the positive sciences. Under the pretext of returning to the sources, systematic theology, with its concepts and technical terminology, is despised, and the simpler and more flexible language of the Fathers is preferred; the solid doctrinal complex defined by the Church over the course of the centuries is neglected, and appeal is made to Sacred Scripture, interpreted by arbitrary symbolism, as though Jesus Christ had not established the Church as the sole depositary and interpreter of the word of God. In this way the dogmatic formulas are devalued, their content being reduced to a minimum capable of adapting itself to any philosophical or religious system. Dogmatic relativism, which has already begun to yield its first poisonous fruits.

Still bolder is the attack on scholastic philosophy, which, according to the innovators, no longer responds to the needs of modern thought, impatient with rigid metaphysics and fixed schemes, hostile to immutable truth and wholly intent upon the flux of life in becoming. The devaluation of reason and of the supreme principles, of theodicy and ethics; the fideistic choice of truth by way of will and feeling; the union of the most opposed systems in an effort to express an ungraspable truth. Such is the vital philosophy that they would substitute for scholastic philosophy.

Finally, the encyclical deplores the imprudent tendency to accept scientific hypotheses and opinions of historical criticism as demonstrated conclusions, even when they are in antithesis to dogma and to the data of Revelation, such as, for example, polygenism (v. MONOGENISM), suggested by evolutionary theory and irreconcilable with the dogma of original sin, and the allegorical and mythological interpretation of the first chapters of Genesis.

Against these and other errors, more or less concealed, of the new philosophy and theology, the Pope pronounces his word of condemnation, which is not, however, a brusque rejection or a barrier against every advance of Christian culture, nor a wholesale refusal of modern thought. On the contrary, he urges the advancement of studies in theology, philosophy, and the sciences, provided that progress does not make the value of truth a chronological question and does not regard the normative function of the Church’s magisterium as an impediment.

Updating in method and form, endogenous development of Christian thought, integration also through the controlled assimilation of new elements and attitudes in the philosophical and scientific sphere—but all in harmony and continuity with classical philosophy and theology, of which the Church points to the finest synthesis in the work of s. Tommaso d'Aquino, while hoping for its ever deeper study and an ever more suitable presentation in keeping with the spirit of the times.

The historical and doctrinal value of this encyclical lies in stemming the evolutionary dynamism that threatens to sweep away reason and faith together, and in reaffirming certainty and confidence in the value of being, thought, and life, the terms of God’s creative and moving action.