Certitude

The word certitude indicates both a state of mind and a quality of a proposition,

according as we say, "I am certain", or, "It is certain". This distinction is

expressed in the technical language of philosophy by saying that there is

subjective certitude and objective certitude. It is worthy of notice, as regards the

use of English terms, that Newman reserves the term certitude for the state of

mind, and employs the word certainty to describe the condition of the evidence of

a proposition.

Certitude is correlative to truth, for truth is the object of the intellect. Knowledge

means knowledge of truth; and hence we are in the habit of saying simply of a

proposition that "it is certain", to express that it is true, and that its truth is so

evident as legitimately to produce certitude. Certitude is contrasted with other

states of mind in reference to a proposition: the state of ignorance, the state of

doubt, and the state of opinion. The last-named signifies, in the strict use of the

term, the holding of a proposition as probable, although in common parlance it is

loosely used in a wider sense, as in speaking of a man's religious opinions,

meaning not his speculations or theories about religious questions, but his

dogmatic convictions. Certitude is such assent to the truth of a proposition as

excludes all real doubt. Here it is proper to observe a distinction between merely

undoubting assent, i.e. the mere absence of doubt, and an assent that positively

excludes doubt, an assent with which doubt is incompatible. Thus one may give

to a statement in the morning newspaper an undoubting assent and credence,

yet readily withdraw that assent if the statement be contradicted in the afternoon

papers. Such assent, though undoubting, is not certitude. But there is a kind of

assent from which doubt is not only in fact absent but absent of necessity,

because such assent and doubt are incompatible. Such is the assent which one

gives to the truth that he really exists, and that he feels well or ill, or to the truth

of the proposition that it is impossible for a thing in the same respect both to be

and not to be, or to the moral law, the existence of God, and the immortality of

the soul. Of these truths we are certain, and such assent is properly called

certitude. Certitude differs from opinion in kind, not in degree only; for opinion,

that is assent to the probability of a proposition, regards the opposite proposition

as not more than improbable; and therefore opinion is always accompanied by

the consciousness that further evidence may cause a change of mind in favour of

the opposite opinion. Opinion, therefore, does not exclude doubt; certitude does.

It has been disputed among philosophers whether certitude is susceptible of

degrees, whether we may rightly say that our certitude of one truth is greater

than our certitude of another truth. In Zigliara's judgment, this question may

easily be solved if a distinction is made between the exclusion of doubt (in which

our various certitudes of different truths are all equal, and by which they are all

equally marked off in kind from opinion) and the positive firmness of assent,

which may be more intense in one case than in another, though in both it be

equally true that we are certain. And, in fact, if we examine experience on this

point, it is clear that our certitude of a self-evident truth, e.g. of the axioms of

geometry, is greater than our certitude of a proposition demonstrated by a long

and complex series of proofs, and that our certitude of such a fact as our own

existence or our own state of feeling (gladness or health) is greater than our

certitude of the existence, for instance, of a republican form of government in this

country, though we are certain in both cases. We are more certain when we

assent to a truth as certain which falls in with our inclination than when we are

forced to a conviction. It should be noted, too, that in the common opinion of

theologians there is a greater certitude in divine faith than in any human science.

There are several kinds of certitude. In the first place, it is divided into

metaphysical, physical, and moral certitude.

Metaphysical certitude is that with which self-evidently necessary truth is known,

or necessary truth demonstrated from self-evident truth. The demonstrative

sciences, such as geometry, possess metaphysical certitude. The contingent

fact of one's own existence, or of one's present state of feeling, is known with

metaphysical certitude.

Physical certitude is that which rests upon the laws of nature. These laws are

not absolutely unchangeable, but subject to the will of the Creator; they are not

self-evident nor demonstrable from self-evident truth; but they are constant, and

discoverable as laws by experience, so that the future may be inferred from the

past, or the distant from the present. It is with physical certitude that a man

knows that he shall die, that food will sustain life, that electricity will furnish

motive power. Astronomers know beforehand with physical certitude the date of

an eclipse or of a transit of Venus.

Moral certitude is that with which judgments are formed concerning human

character and conduct; for the laws of human nature are not quite universal, but

subject to occasional exceptions. It is moral certitude which we generally attain

in the conduct of life, concerning, for example, the friendship of others, the fidelity

of a wife or a husband, the form of government under which we live, or the

occurrence of certain historical events, such as the Protestant Reformation or the

French Revolution. Though almost any detail in these events may be made a

subject of dispute, especially when we enter the region of motives and try to

trace cause and effect, and though almost any one of the witnesses may be

shown to have made some mistake or misrepresentation, yet the occurrence of

the events, taken in the mass, is certain.

Father John Rickaby (First Principles of Knowledge) observes that certitude is

not necessarily exclusive of all misgiving whatsoever (such as the thought of the

bare possibility that we may be mistaken, for we are not infallible), but of all

solid, reasonable misgivings. The term moral certitude is used by some

philosophers in a wider sense, to include an assent in matters of conduct, given

not on purely intellectual grounds of evidence, but through the virtue of prudence

and the influence of the will over the intellect, because we judge that doubt would

not be wise. In such a case, we know that an opinion or a course of action would

be right as a rule, let us say, in nine cases out of ten, though we cannot shut our

eyes to the possibility that the particular case which we are considering may be

the exceptional case in which such a judgment would be wrong. Other

philosophers say that in such a case we are not certain, but only judge it wise to

act as if we were certain, and put doubts aside because useless. But it seems

clear that in such a case we are certain of something, whether that something be

described as the truth of a proposition or the wisdom of a course of action. This

certitude might perhaps better be called Practical certitude, since it mainly

concerns action. Hence, it is said that in cases in which it is necessary to act, in

which great issues are involved, and yet the evidence, when logically set forth,

would seem to amount to no more than a higher probability for one course than

for another, the standard of judgment, or criterion, is the judicium prudentis viri,

the judgment of a wise man, whose mind is unclouded by passion or prejudice,

and who has some knowledge derived from experience of similar cases. Such a

judgment is totally different from the spirit of the gambler's throw, which is

reckless not only of certainty but even of probability.

Certitude is likewise divided into natural certitude (termed also direct, or

spontaneous) and philosophical. Natural certitude is that which belongs to

"common sense", or the spontaneous working of the judgment, which is common

to all men not idiots or insane. This certitude belongs chiefly to self-evident truth

and to the truths necessary for the conduct of life, e.g. the existent of other

beings besides ourselves, the duties existing between husband and wife, parents

and children, the existence of a Supreme Being deserving of reverence. To these

and similar truths the mind comes with certitude, without any special education,

in the ordinary course of life in human society. Philosophical (or scientific)

certitude is that which results from a process of reflection, upon an analysis of

the evidence for and against our convictions, a perception of the reasons which

support them and of the objections which may be urged against them, together

with an examination of the powers and the limits of the human intelligence. The

term natural certitude is sometimes used in another sense, in contradistinction

from the certitude of Divine faith, which is supernatural certitude, and which,

according to theologians generally, is greater than any degree of certitude to be

had in science, because it rests not upon human reason, which is liable to be

mistaken, but upon the authority of God, who cannot err. (St. Thomas, Summa,

I, Q. i, a. 5.)

A great part of philosophy is taken up with the questions whether certitude is

possible, what is the extent of the sphere of certain knowledge, and by what

tests or criteria truth may be certainly distinguished from falsehood, so that we

may know when we have a right to be certain. A few philosophers in ancient and

modern times have, seriously or not, denied the possibility of attaining certitude

on any subject whatsoever, and professed universal scepticism. Such are

Nicholas of Cusa, Montaigne, Charron, and Bayle, the last of whom aimed at

producing the impression that everything is disputable by showing that everything

is disputed. Literally universal scepticism is impossible, for it is a profession of

knowledge to assert that nothing can be known, and to believe that there can be

no belief. It is thus a contradiction in terms. A sceptic should in consistency be

sceptical as to his own scepticism; but no attention would be given to such a

sceptic unless as one attends, for amusement, to a jester. Nevertheless,

universal scepticism may practically produce pernicious consequences, because

its universality is overlooked, and its arguments are viewed as if they applied only

to some particular sphere in which the reader (if it so be) is tempted to doubt.

Thus, sceptical objections against the principle of causation may be employed

against the proofs for the existence of God, while the reader is not warned, and

does not remember, that they would equally avail against taking food and sleep

for the restoration of strength, or against the anticipation that the sun will rise

to-morrow. It should be added that some Christian apologists, in endeavouring to

prove the necessity of Divine revelation, have used language differing but little

from that of scepticism, to the disparagement of human reason. A noted example

is Huet, "Traité de la faiblesse de l'esprit humain" (Paris, 1723).

What is more common than a profession of universal scepticism is a scepticism

as to the possibility of philosophic certitude. Many who have no doubt as to

natural certitude, or the certitude acquirable by "common sense", the natural,

spontaneous action of the unsophisticated mind, regard philosophy as more apt

to open questions than to settle them, and to raise objections than to solve

them. This seems to have been the position of Pascal, who says: "Reason

confounds dogmatists, and nature confounds sceptics"; and, "The heart has

reasons of its own which the understanding does not know". This seems to have

been the position also of a very different man, David Hume, who says:

"Fortunately since reason is incapable of dispelling these clouds, nature herself

suffices for that purpose and cures me of this philosophical delirium" (Treatise of

Human Nature, I, 297). He said to a friend who spoke to him concerning the

future life and the existence of God: "Though I throw out my speculations to

entertain the learned and metaphysical world, yet in other things I do not think so

differently from the rest of the world, as you imagine." And he gives his idea of

scepticism in a remark upon Berkeley's arguments against the real externality of

the sensible world: "That these arguments are in reality merely sceptical appears

from this, that they admit of no answer, and produce no conviction; their only

effect is to cause that momentary amazement and irresolution and confusion,

which is the result of Skepticism." (Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding,

ch. xii, note 4.) Kant's system, which denies that the speculative reason can

attain to real knowledge, and admits only Practical certitude, and consequently

denies the possibility of any system of metaphysical philosophy, is virtually the

same view. It is needless to say that, in a philosopher, such a view is

self-contradictory. Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason", as well as his other works,

was an exercise of the speculative reason. If certitude of knowledge is not

obtainable on any subject by the speculative reason, how could he indulge in

such positive and dogmatic propositions? If we consider this view of philosophy,

as it is held by some men of sense and virtue, who point to the disputations and

wranglings of philosophers, the variety of opinions, the number of infidel

philosophers, and the general suspicion felt by earnestly religious people, the

answer to it is, that this view has some measure of truth, but is a great

exaggeration. It is quite true that philosophical inquiries concerning morals and

religion, if not conducted with proper moral dispositions, are likely to terminate in

doubt. If there be any bias, whether conscious or unconscious, against the

obligations of morality and religion, there can of course be only one issue. If the

understanding seeks to know everything; if it rejects facts, however well attested,

because it does not see how they can be so; if it will accept no truth, however

firmly demonstrated, unless the harmony with every other part of a system can

be made clear; if the mind makes itself the measure of possibility; if it claims to

see through and through the universe, and its origin, and its end; if it refuses to

submit to mystery, or to acknowledge that it is limited; and if, because it cannot

know everything, it will proudly not consent to know anything, of course with

such a disposition philosophizing cannot issue in philosophic certitude. But that

is not the fault of philosophy, nor of reason; and the abuse cannot take away the

use, but only be a warning against the misuse of philosophy.

"Methodic doubt", that is, provisional doubt of every truth, was put forward by

Descartes as the proper course for the discovery of truth. This philosopher

teaches that in order to be certain of the truth of our convictions we should begin

by doubting everything, except one thing: "I think, and therefore I am." He

professes to hold that every other truth may be doubted and needs proof. He

suggests that we may doubt whether we can discover the truth on any other

point whatsoever, for it may appear possibly that we have been created by a

malign or mischievous beings who so constituted our mind that we must

invariably be mistaken. The Cartesian method is self-contradictory. To make the

supposition that possibly the human intellect cannot know the truth, on any point

whatsoever, is to assume that this supposition may be true, and that there is

such a thing as truth, and that it can be known. To attempt to disprove the

supposition, to undertake to show the veracity of the cognitive faculties,

presupposes their veracity or power of knowing the truth on some points at least.

In fact, Descartes proved the veracity of the cognitive faculties from the veracity of

God. The veracity of God, however, is known as the result of a demonstration of

some length and complexity; and the undertaking of such demonstration shows

a previous belief in the power of the mind to discover the truth. In fact, the very

doubt on such a subject is a self-contradiction; for doubt as well as certitude is

correlated to truth. To doubt whether a particular view may not be false is to

suspect that the opposite may be true. To doubt that the intellect can know any

truth is to question whether it may not be true that we are ignorant. But this

implies that there is such a thing as truth, and that the truth at least about our

own power of knowing, can be discovered. Without such a presupposition,

thought cannot be carried on at all. Nor is it a blind presupposition or animal

instinct. For in the perception of first principles, or truths evident by their own

light, there is implicit the perception that there is such a thing as truth and

knowledge. The error in Descartes' method is its exaggeration. It is wise to be on

our guard against the prejudices, or opinions, peculiar to a particular time and

place, the place of birth or education, the class or party to which our early

associations have attached us; but the principles which are self-evident, or which

are accepted by the human race, should be exempted from doubt. It must be

remembered, too, that the Church teaches that a Catholic cannot without sin

entertain doubts against the Faith; though, of course, he may lawfully doubt

whether it is true that a particular doctrine is taught by the Church, or whether he

has correctly apprehended what the Church intends to teach, and whether a

particular teacher expounds it correctly; or, again, he may investigate the

evidences of Christianity and of Catholicism, and may doubt whether a particular

argument is valid proof. But the method of doubt, taken as a whole, has been

condemned by the Church.

Since, then, some things can be known with certitude, some things can be seen

to be probable, and some things must remain forever a matter of doubt; and

since the human reason is liable to error, the need has been felt for some

criterion or criteria by which we may know that we really know, and by which

genuine certitude concerning the truth may be distinguished from the spurious

certitude of delusion.

The proper test of truth is evidence, whether the evidence of a truth in itself or by

participation in the evidence of some other truth from which it is proved. Many

truths, indeed, have to be accepted on authority; but then it has to be made

evident that such authority is legitimate, is capable of knowing the truth, and is

qualified to teach in the particular department in which it is accepted. Many

truths which are at first accepted on authority may afterwards be made evident to

the reason of the disciple. Such in fact is the ordinary way in which learning and

science are acquired. The error of Bonald's system of Traditionalism (which was

condemned by the Church) consists in its exaggeration, in its maintaining that

the truths of natural religion are known solely on authority, that each generation

simply inherits them from the preceding, and that unless they had been revealed

to the first parents of the race human reason never could have discovered them.

If we take the cognitive faculties, one by one, the senses are not in themselves

deceived concerning their proportionate object, but owing to circumstances they

are so liable to deception that they need the vigilant supervision of the reason.

The nature of sensible phenomena is not their object, but that of the reason. It

should be remembered, however, that the scientific theories concerning the

nature of sound, of colour and light, and of heat, have been thought out by the aid

of data furnished by the senses, and therefore confirm the trustworthiness of the

senses within certain limits. That men of science have no doubt as to the reality

of extension, figure, movement, and space, any more than of force, is shown by

their discussions concerning atoms, electrons, and ions. Consciousness is

infallible as to the fact of its present states, e.g. that I am feeling warm, or well,

or that I am thinking. The memory often errs, but often is trusted with certitude.

Reason within a narrow sphere, is infallible, viz. in the perception of self-evident

truth, e.g. that whatever is is, that every movement or change must have a

cause, that things equal to the same are equal to each other. Truths which are

clearly and easily deducible from self-evident truth share in their certitude. Next

to such certitude, we may place the certainty of truths affirmed by the whole

human race, especially as regards practical principles. "That which seems to all

men, this we say is; and he who rejects this ground of belief will not easily

assign a more solid one" (Aristotle, Ethics, X, ii). Universal consent is not,

however, the sole criterion. To make it such was the error of Lamennais. Besides

the truths resting on self-evidence (or easy deduction from it) and those resting

on the authority of the human race, there is a considerable body of truth which

each man of average intelligence comes to know with certitude in the course of

his life. Most of these truths are first learned upon authority and afterwards

verified by one's own reflection or experience. It may even be said that a practical

Christian in the course of his life has by experiential verification an additional

moral certitude of the truth of revelation, since he has experience of the power of

the Christian religion to sustain the soul against temptation and to strengthen

every virtuous and noble aspiration.

THE TEACHING OF THE CHURCH CONCERNING CERTITUDE

The Church pronounces judgment concerning the sphere of certitude, not so

much for the sake of speculative knowledge, as in the interest of religion and

morality. The mind of the Church upon this subject is manifested

(1) by placing books dealing with the question upon the Index, or by obliging

ecclesiastics, or teachers in Catholic institutions, or editors of Catholic

periodicals to subscribe some proposition;

(2) by "condemning" a proposition extracted from some work, in the sense in

which it is found in that work;

(3) dogmatically, by a solemn affirmation of some truth or the anathematization of

a falsehood. When a proposition is "condemned" or anathematized, the

contradictory (not the contrary) proposition is asserted as true.

Concerning the sphere of certitude in religion, "Holy Mother Church holds and

teaches that God, the first cause (principium) and last end of all things, may be

known with certainty, by the natural light of the human reason, through the

medium of things created" (Vatican Council, Constitut. de Fide Cath., cap. ii);

and this affirmation is supported bar an anathema of the contradictory proposition

(ibid., can. I). The condemnation of the Agnostic position concerning God may be

studied in the Encyclical "Pascendi gregis dominici", in which the subject is

admirably treated.

That "the freedom of the human will and the spirituality of the soul may be known

with certainty, by the natural light of the reason", is a truth which the pope,

approving of a decree of the Sacred Congregation of the Index, obliged Bonnetty,

editor of the "Annales de philosophie chrétienne", in 1855, to subscribe

(Denzinger, "Enchiridion", n. 1506). It would seem that these truths concerning

the human soul are also in some measure implied in the definition and anathema

cited above, concerning our knowledge of God; for the attributes of God are

known by the natural reason only, through the things that are made; and

therefore freedom and morality must be known to be attributes of some creature

before they can be attributed to God.

The limitation of natural knowledge and certitude has been repeatedly asserted

by the process of placing books upon the Index, by the "condemnation" of

propositions, by papal Briefs, and finally by a dogmatic decree, which alone is

sufficient, viz: that of the Vatican Council (De Fide, cap. iv) which declares that

there are two orders of knowledge, distinct both in their source and

their object; distinct in their source, for the truths of one order are

known by natural reason, and those of the other by faith in divine

revelation; and distinct in their object, because, over and above the

truths naturally attainable, there are proposed to our belief

mysteries hidden in God, which can be known through divine

revelation alone.

This solemn affirmation is supported by an anathema against any one who shall

deny that there is an order of knowledge higher than the natural, or who shall say

that man can naturally by progress attain at length to the knowledge of all truth

(De Revelat., can. iii). Moreover, even as regards the natural knowledge of God,

the Vatican Council teaches that

truths not unattainable by the natural light of the human reason

have, by divine mercy, been revealed in order that they may be

known by all easily, and with certainty and without any admixture of

error (De Fide, cap. ii).

As regards certitude concerning the fact of Divine revelation, the Vatican Council

teaches that the proofs are not, indeed, such as to make assent intellectually

necessary (De Fide, cap. iii and can. v), but that they are sufficient to make the

belief "agreeable to reason" (rationi consentaneum), being "most certain and

accommodated to the intelligence of all" (De Fide, cap. iii). Anathema is

pronounced against any one who shall say that Divine revelation cannot be made

credible by "external signs" but only by "inner experience or personal inspiration"

(De Fide, can. iii), and against any one who shall say that "miracles are not

possible", or that "miracles can never in any case be certainly known" to be

such, or that "by miracles the divine origin of the Christian religion cannot be

properly proved" (rite probari; De Fide, can. iv). It is, then, moral certitude that is

attainable by the reason as to the fact of Divine revelation. The certitude of faith is

supernatural, being due to Divine grace, and is superior not merely to moral

certitude, but to the certitude of physical science, and to that of the

demonstrative sciences. When it is a question whether any particular truth is

contained within the deposit of revelation, the certainty of faith can be obtained

only from the authority of the "teaching Church", but a human certitude may be

obtained by arguments drawn from the inferior and subordinate authorities such

as the Fathers and the "Schola Theologica".

M. J. Ryan

Transcribed by Rick McCarty

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume III

Nihil Obstat, November 1, 1908. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor

Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

The Catholic Encyclopedia: NewAdvent.org