HUMANI GENERIS

This distinguished document inevitably recalls modernism (v.), whose roots lie in the divorce between reason and faith, born in the age of humanism and matured through the Enlightenment, encyclopedism, and Kantian criticism, from which sprang liberalism, Marxism, and rationalism. Toward the end of the 19th century the conflict sharpened, and the problem of reconciliation came to the fore. Vatican Council I charted the path to a just solution: from the divine to the human through the Church. Modernism, by contrast, sought to go from the human to the divine without the Church—and thus met its ruin. The historic encyclical *Pascendi* (v.) broke the crisis, freeing Christian thought from grave peril. Yet in recent years there have surfaced, here and there across the broad field of sacred learning, motifs, attitudes, and tendencies that bear unmistakable kinship with the modernist crisis and constitute a fresh unease and danger.

Pius XII perceived the peril promptly and precisely. In the encyclical *H. G.* he diagnosed the developing malady and applied effective remedies, first identifying the guiding currents of modern culture in universal evolutionism, existentialism, and historicism. These currents lead to the denial or depreciation of the absolute in being and thought, yielding instead a contingentism, positivism, and relativism that render metaphysics—and hence theology—impossible.

Confronting these threatening trends, the Pope does not decree a cultural isolationism for Catholic thought. Instead, he urges scholars to acquaint themselves with the new doctrines that pose fresh problems for study and often contain seeds of truth. Yet he deplores the imprudence of certain Catholics, eager to modernize, who lapse into a false irenicism and compromise the integrity of faith and the Church’s entire traditional doctrine.

The encyclical follows with a keen analysis of morbid tendencies in theology, philosophy, and the borderlands of the positive sciences. Under the pretext of returning to the sources, systematic theology with its concepts and technical terminology is scorned, while preference is given to the simpler, more flexible language of the Fathers. The Church’s centuries-long doctrinal synthesis is neglected, and appeal is made to Sacred Scripture, interpreted through arbitrary symbolism as if Christ had not constituted the Church the sole depositary and interpreter of God’s word. Thus dogmatic formulas are depreciated, their content reduced to a minimum adaptable to any philosophical or religious system. Dogmatic relativism has already begun to bear its poisonous fruit.

Even bolder is the attack on Scholastic philosophy, which, according to the innovators, no longer meets the demands of modern thought impatient with rigid metaphysical schemes, hostile to immutable truth, and wholly absorbed in the flux of becoming. Reason and its supreme principles, natural theology and ethics are depreciated; truth is embraced through will and feeling; disparate systems are yoked together in a vain effort to express an elusive truth. Such is the “vital” philosophy proposed as a substitute for Scholasticism.

Finally, the encyclical deplores the incautious tendency to accept scientific hypotheses and critical opinions as demonstrated conclusions, even when they contradict dogma and revealed data—for example, polygenism (v. MONOGENISM), suggested by evolutionary theory yet irreconcilable with the dogma of original sin, and the allegorical or mythological interpretation of the early chapters of Genesis.

Against these and other errors, more or less covert, of the new philosophy and theology, the Pope pronounces his word of reproof—not, however, a blunt rejection, nor a bar to all progress in Christian culture, nor a wholesale dismissal of modern thought. On the contrary, he urges advancement in theological, philosophical, and scientific studies, provided that progress does not make the value of truth a matter of chronology and does not treat the normative function of the Church’s magisterium as an obstacle.

Updating in method and form, endogenous development of Christian thought, even through the controlled assimilation of new elements and attitudes in philosophy and science—yet always in harmony and continuity with classical philosophy and theology, whose finest synthesis the Church points to in the work of St Thomas Aquinas, while urging ever deeper study and presentation suited to the spirit of the age.

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