DOGMAS AND OPINIONS iii 



and are liable either to be modified or to be abandoned. 

 This is as true of the science of theology as of other 

 sciences. Every science has its assured dogmas and 

 its tentative hypotheses as well. In theology the 

 former derive their certainty from permanent catholic 

 consent as to what has been supernaturally revealed. 

 The latter are called dubia or pious opinions, being 

 the fruits of speculation in fields wherein the knowl- 

 edge which can be acquired in this life is too frag- 

 mentary to warrant what is called the certainty of 

 faith, or the assurance of spiritual knowledge.^ But 

 a tendency always exists, especially when the peculiar 

 intellectual conditions of the age make particular 

 opinions of this kind appear highly credible, to confuse 

 them with really cathohc dogmas. The consequences 

 are sometimes deplorable. All speculative views in 

 theology are Hable to become untenable through the 

 increase of knowledge in other departments of inves- 

 tigation. When this happens in relation to opinions 

 that have become mixed up with cathohc certainties, 

 a panic inevitably occurs in the rehgious world; and, 

 until sufficient time has elapsed for a readjustment of 

 fundamental perspectives to be achieved, multitudes 

 regard the new knowledge as subversive of Christian 

 doctrine. Such was the case, as I have shown you in 

 my second lecture,^ when Darwin secured a scientific 

 place for the evolutionary h}'pothesis. The storm still 



^ The writer has more fully explained the distinction between 

 dogma and pious opinion in Atithority, Eccles. and Biblical, ch. viii. 

 §§ 7. S. 2 See pp. 52,54. 



