Unbelief by Fr. Nicolas J. Laforet

Author:Fr. Nicolas J. Laforet [Laforet , Fr. Nicolas J.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: 9781622823970
Publisher: Sophia Institute Press
Published: 2017-05-18T04:00:00+00:00

6

Materialism

The ordinary result of the intellectual levity and moral dissipation that we have just described is to materialize the soul and to lead it to believe only in sensible realities. There is a twofold materialism — a dogmatic materialism, which denies positively the existence of the soul and of God, and a practical materialism, which denies neither the one nor the other expressly, but neglects and forgets them both. The moral condition, of which we have just spoken, cannot be distinguished from this practical materialism. We will now speak of dogmatic materialism, properly so called.

This materialism, which for a short time was ignominiously driven from the schools of infidel philosophy, has reappeared in the last few years and has again acquired considerable influence. It is daily gaining ground in the domain of natural science, and many cultivated minds are ranging themselves under its banner. Now, materialism is radical infidelity — it is the denial of the very foundation on which all religion rests, and on which the Christian Faith in particular must take its stand.

How can a soul come to ignore and deny its own existence? How can it sink to this intellectual and moral degradation? The key to this mystery must be sought for in human liberty, which is the principle of all degradation and all elevation. We are free and imperfect beings; we may refuse our adherence to truths of the moral order, and our soul may so far blind itself not all at once, but by dint of a thousand weak and base acts that at length it will come to ignore God and no longer be able to discern itself. Men reach this point by two roads: by libertinism of life, and also, while preserving a comparatively virtuous exterior, by that religious indifference that enervates the best part of the soul and ends by extinguishing its life.

Our soul has a direct and immediate view of itself; it has a perception of itself, the manifestations of its life, its understanding, its sensibility, and its will; it perceives God and the moral order by evidence that seems irresistible. How then is materialism possible? It arises from the moral condition of the soul; it comes from this: that the state of our understanding depends in great measure on the state of our will and affections. All our faculties are mutually affected and exercise an incessant action upon one another. Nothing is easier than to refute a materialist, but it is not so easy to cure him. This cure is possible only by means of a moral treatment that is occasionally very painful.

There are souls so buried in matter, so materialized, that the realities of the moral world have no longer any meaning to them but appear to them the most inexplicable chimera. The most sublime religious symbols reveal absolutely nothing to them: in the most touching ceremonies of religion they behold merely external things, having no moral significance.

A Russian of great distinction who was converted a few years ago to the Catholic Faith attests this of himself: M.

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