283
The value of orthodoxy is analogous to the value of true physical
science 285
All should try to learn the truth who can; but we do not condemn
others who cannot 286
Even amongst Catholics generally no recondite theological knowledge
is required 287
The facts of the Catholic _religion_ are simple. Theology is the
complex scientific explanation of them 288
Catholicism is misunderstood because the outside world confuses
with its religion--1st. The complex explanations of it 289
2nd. Matters of discipline, and practical rules 290
3rd. The pious opinions, or the scientific errors of private
persons, or particular epochs 291
None of which really are any integral part of the Church 293
Neither are the peculiar exaggerations of moral feeling that have
been prevalent at different times 293
The Church theoretically is a living, growing, self-adapting
organism 295
She is, in fact, the growing, moral sense of mankind organised
and developed under a supernatural tutelage 295
CHAPTER XII.
UNIVERSAL HISTORY AND THE CLAIMS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
We must now consider the Church in relation to history and external
historical criticism 297
1st. The history of Christianity; 2nd. The history of other
religions 298
Criticism has robbed the Bible of nearly all the supposed internal
evidences of its supernatural character 298
It has traced the chief Christian dogmas to non-Christian sources 300
It has shown that the histories of other religions are strangely
analogous to the history of Christianity 300
And to Protestantism these discoveries are fatal 302
But they are not fatal to Catholicism, whose attitude to history
is made utterly different by the doctrine of the perpetual
infallibility of the Church 305
The Catholic Church teaches us to b
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