Probabilism

PROBABILISM. —

I. MORAL THEOLOGY

The term is used in theology to designate the moral system that admits, as a legitimate norm of conduct in the face of uncertainty concerning an obligation, a probable opinion.

1. Historical origins

Historically, for several centuries the difficulties of Christian life were resolved from case to case without any uniform principle being professed, although here and there statements anticipating p. are to be found. In the Decretals, probabiliorism (v.); however, the prudence (v.) and epikeia illuminates the problem in a light more favorable to p. With Boniface VIII, support for p. became more pronounced; in the Regulae iuris, the principle of the Decretals, pars tutior sequenda, is not cited, whereas some Regulae contain the foundations of p., clearly enunciated

(Regulae iuris, 11, 30, 49, 57, in 6º). From that time onward, through the Summae confessorum, p. gained increasing support. But the person who paved the way for an exact formulation of the system was Cardinal Gaetano, with the introduction of a distinction later summarized by Suárez between speculative doubt and practical doubt. Bartolomeo di Medina, O. P., in 1577 (Expositio of the Sum. Theol., 1º-2º, q. 19, a. 5 ff.), applied it without any restriction: «In omnibus negotiis etiam magni momenti et in maximam iniuriam tertii, licitum est sequi opiniones probabiles. Ergo etiam in materia Sacramentorum». As soon as the Expositio appeared (1580), p. was favorably received by almost all theologians, who were nevertheless divided into two currents, the strict and the moderate. The moderates (such as Bañez and Suárez) concerned themselves with specifying and delimiting the cases in which the principle could be applied, in order to avoid the abuses that might result from it, while at the same time striving to provide p. with a solid foundation. For them, Medina’s principle applies only when the liceity of the action is in doubt. One must therefore abstain from applying it when the validity of a Sacrament is at issue or when its application might risk causing harm to one’s neighbor. Suárez founded the system on the principle that he was the first to enunciate: Lex dubia non obligat, and distinguished factual doubt from doubt concerning the law: the latter permits the principle lex dubia non obligat to be applied purely and simply; as for factual doubts, Suárez resolves them through the principle of possession (in dubio melior est condicio possidentis), whenever it is applicable. When, however, the law is clear and certain and the only question is whether it obliges in the particular case, it must be followed. On the other hand, when two opinions conflict, one of which is merely probable and the other improbable, the former must be regarded as certain (De legibus, VIII, chap. 3, no. 19).

Not all probabilists showed the same circumspection. During the last quarter of the sixteenth century, casuistry underwent an exuberant development. Some part in this was played by the broad and imprecise p. of certain writers, which provoked a violent reaction lasting for more than a hundred years. Two opposing causes contributed to it: Jansenism above all, and the excesses of certain authors who indulged in lax assertions. The influence gained by Jansenism in France through its apparently austere morality, despite repeated condemnations (1653 ff.; Denz-U, 1092–99), is attested by the condemnations of p. issued by certain French bishops and by the anti-probabilist position of the Oratory and the University of Louvain. Certain lax propositions of authors professing p. were collected and condemned by the University of Louvain (1653 and 1657). The propositions condemned by the Holy Office (24 Sept. 1665, 18 May 1666: Denz-U, 1101–45) VIZI (v.) were also drawn from the same authors. It also seems (although some question the matter) that the same Pope, taking personal action, expressed to the General Chapter of the Dominicans (1656) the wish that they should adopt an attitude of opposition to p.; from that time, the best Dominican theologians were probabiliorists. The struggle became more severe under Innocent XI (v.), who was personally hostile to p. Certain French bishops asked the Pope to condemn a series of propositions, the seventh of which contained a not obscure condemnation of II. The University of Louvain went further: it sent three doctors to the Pope with one hundred propositions drawn from probabilist authors, seeking their condemnation. The doctors remained in Rome for nearly two years; after patient work, the Holy Office selected and condemned 65 propositions, without p. being truly struck by the condemnation (ibid., 1151–1216). P. was also shaken by the support given by Innocent XI and other popes to p. Tirso González S. I., ATTONE (v.), and to other probabiliorists. A decree of the Holy Office of 26 June 1680 states that the Holy Father was highly satisfied with the action undertaken by Fr. González in favor of the opinio probabilior and against p., and that he had ordered this action to continue (ibid., 1219). In 1680 the same Pontiff worked to have González elected superior general of the Jesuits: all this reveals only the Pontiff’s personal intervention. In fact, p. in general continued to predominate in Italy, Austria, Germany, Spain, and in many religious Orders. Only in 1700, with the Assembly of the French clergy, under the impetus of Bossuet, was p. eliminated from the French seminaries conducted by the Lazarists and the Sulpicians. But the Church’s determined struggle against rigorism had already begun, with the condemnations issued by Alexander VIII (1689, 1690); nevertheless, p. would still be viewed unfavorably by Benedict XIII (1724–30) and Benedict XIV (1740–58). The revival, however, was already approaching, with St. Alfonso (v.). The nineteenth century witnessed the weakening of probabilism and a division of the field between p. and equiprobabilism, with a very marked predominance of p.

2. Doctrine

P. maintains that, speculatively and practically, in the face of a law that is uncertain or doubtful for any reason, when the issue concerns only the liceity of an action (not its validity, nor a means necessary to a certain end, nor the certain rights of third parties), one may follow the opinion opposed to the law in favor of freedom, provided that it is truly solid, even if the contrary opinion is more probable. It must, however, be a genuine and objective probability.

3. Proofs

In order to explain and defend their system, probabilists appealed to various principles: the principle of possession, since hominis libertas exterius ad legis obligationem possidet; the principle that every probable action is an action performed prudently; and the more universal and more valid principle that an uncertain law cannot create a certain obligation. These proofs present vulnerable points (the principle of possession, for example, does not seem to be rightly applied outside the matter of justice). Today it is preferred to appeal solely to the principle of doubtful law, taken as a norm from canon law itself (can. 15) and from civil law, and logically contained in every system that is not tutiorism. On the basis of the aforementioned principle, the argument is made that a law opposed by an opinion that is truly and merely probable is precisely doubtful; therefore, it does not create an obligation. The first premise, in substance, repeats the philosophical principle that an effect cannot be greater than its cause: certainty cannot arise from doubt. The second finds its justification in the fact that the reasons which make an opinion solid and true necessarily undermine the certainty of the opposite opinion, since the same assertion cannot possess certainty and at the same time only probability. Nor, when the opinion favorable to the law is more probable than the contrary one, is there true certainty; for greater probability provides greater verisimilitude, not greater evidence, and evidence is the sole foundation of certainty.

Although the Church, jealous of preserving the integrity of morality, did not condemn probabilism, even when certain pontiffs personally followed a different course. One should add the favor shown to probabilism by St. Alfonso (v.), who professed and defended it for years; and if, in the final period, he distanced himself from it in order to draw closer to equiprobabilism, he did so because of historical circumstances, whereas in his applications he remained a probabilist. Considerable weight must also be given to the fact that the fiercest opposition to probabilism came from Jansenist heresy or from circles consciously or unconsciously favorable to II.

4. Use of probabilism

Probabilism is applied by the Church not only to human laws (cf. Regulae iuris, in 6º; can. 15), but also to laws of divine and natural right (cf., for example, the case of doubtful impotence; can. 1608 § 2). But since probabilism upholds the legitimacy of not observing a law that is genuinely doubtful (a doubt of law, from which speculative probability [v.] arises), and not when faced with a certain law and a necessary end to be attained with certainty, the field of application of probabilism undergoes certain limitations; that is, it does not apply: 1) to matters necessary for eternal salvation (e.g., probable Baptism; truths to be believed probably with necessity of means), which are governed by this general principle: nulla nimia securitas, ubi periclitatur aeternitas, imposed by charity toward oneself; 2) to the performance of acts affecting the validity of the Sacraments (e.g., the use of matter or form that is only probable). Apart from the fact that here the issue concerns validity and not merely the liceity of acts, the virtue of religion imposes, as a general norm, the holy treatment of holy things, and the first irreverence would be to expose a Sacrament to the danger of nullity.

This law, however, is tempered, within the same sphere, by another equally serious law: Sacramento sunt propter homines. From the combination of these two laws arise various possibilities for applying probabilism in sacramental matters, which may be regarded as exceptions to the exception: a) thus, in a case of necessity, a Sacrament may be administered with elements of doubtful validity if it is impossible to obtain elements that are certainly valid. b) Likewise, when the existence of an element depends on a concession of the Church, such as jurisdiction, it is licit to administer or receive the Sacrament when the existence of this element is doubtful, because the Church has declared once and for all its intention to supply it (can. 209); 3) in the case of a certain right or certain harm to third parties (e.g., using a medicine that is probably beneficial but also probably harmful to the patient; firing a shot while in doubt whether it will strike a man rather than game), one is faced with absolutely certain laws prohibiting harm to one’s neighbor, laws inspired by the various kinds of justice—commutative, distributive, or legal. In commutative justice, the physician is obliged to treat the sick person, using only effective or at least non-harmful means; the hunter is obliged not to expose himself to the risk of killing a man. By distributive justice, the judge is obliged, in civil cases, to give judgment according to the more probable findings; in criminal cases, he must adopt the opinion favorable to the accused if he cannot gather sufficient elements establishing guilt, on the basis of a juridical principle: In dubio facendum est reo. By legal justice—that is, by virtue of a general principle of the common good and the consequent respect for public order—the subject is obliged to obey his superior even if the act imposed is probably illicit, provided that there remain good probabilities of its liceity; he is also obliged to obey when there is doubt that the superior is exceeding his competence or that the precept may be useless. In all these cases one can no longer speak of doubt, because on one side there is a certain law under which all the cases in question fall. Nevertheless, even in these cases, when there is no other possibility of acting, when the certain means or valid matter is lacking, or when confronted with another right that is no less certain, it is licit to follow probabilism, choosing, however, among the various probable means, etc., the most probable and the least harmful to the law that imposes a certain obligation. In these circumstances the principle of the tutiorists applies: In dubiis pars iurior sequendo est.

Some opposing theologians, while having to admit the solidity of probabilism, maintain that it constitutes the minimum required to avoid sin, and that Christian perfection is opposed to this measure in favor of human weakness. This assertion, stated so absolutely, is not exact: it is true of many laws, but not of others, because perfection is not a property of the law as such, but of the work; and in certain laws Christian perfection is better realized through probabilism.

Recently probabilism was attacked not as a doctrine, but as a method of teaching. In the desire to renew moral theology, some consider it opportune to insist on speculative principles, in order to free it from the shackles of probabilism, which impede broader elevations and conceptions. A suggestive but ancient question. Through careful psychological analyses, the science may be presented better; but they cannot provide a light—however much humanity desires it—that penetrates all its steps amid the practical complexities of life.

At times, for example with A. Cournot (1801–77), p. is understood not so much as a skeptical or semiskeptical theory, but as recognition of the limited and approximate character of all human knowledge.

BREL: on the p. of the New Academy, M. Dal Pra, La scetticismo greco, Milan 1950. On A. Cournot: F. Mentré, Cournot et la renaissance du probabilisme au XIXe siècle, Paris 1908; E. Bréhier, Histoire de la philosophie, II, there 1932, pp. 986–92. Sofia Vanni Rovighi