Who is 'Modern Man'?

 Vatican II purported to address 'modern man' with the timeless Gospel disclosed in new, more relevant communication strategies. While on the surface this appears to be charitable and compassionate, we must first look at who this modern man actually is and how the character of the Church's teaching was adapted to this end.

In the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et spes) section five reaches a startling conclusion about the consciousness of modern man:

Thus, the human race has passed from a rather static concept of reality to a more dynamic, evolutionary one. In consequence there has arisen a new series of problems, a series as numerous as can be, calling for efforts of analysis and synthesis.

The "Static" View (The Classical & Thomistic Cosmos): In traditional scholasticism and classical cosmology, reality is rooted in immutable essences (essentia), fixed metaphysical order, and objective nature created by God in a set, hierarchical structure. The Earth, physical creation, and natural law were viewed as stable baselines.

The "Dynamic, Evolutionary" View: By explicitly adopting the language of evolutionary dynamism—heavily influenced by the controversial Jesuit paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin—the text replaces an ontology of fixed being with an ontology of becoming and process.

The Subtext: By framing traditional metaphysics and classical cosmology (including the classical/geocentric view of a fixed physical and spiritual order) as merely an outdated, "static" phase of human consciousness, the document creates the philosophical justification for updating dogmatic and moral expressions to match a changing world. 

The truth as delivered in traditional syntax and language construction is deemed inaccessible to modern man. He does not believe in a fixed order and cannot derive the outlines of divinity from the witness of creatures. His world is in flux. Untethered from the secure foundations revealed by natural theology, he is adrift on an insignificant planet in a random galaxy hurtling through space at 66,000 MPH to... where? 

Modern man is described deftly in St. Pius X's encyclical Pascendi Dominici gregis:

...both science and history must be atheistic: and within their boundaries there is room for nothing but phenomena; God and all that is divine are utterly excluded.

... But when Natural theology has been destroyed, the road to revelation closed through the rejection of the arguments of credibility, and all external revelation absolutely denied, it is clear that this explanation will be sought in vain outside man himself. It must, therefore, be looked for in man; and since religion is a form of life, the explanation must certainly be found in the life of man.

This is the condition of modern man that Vatican II made the object of its appeal: he cannot accept what Vatican I taught infallibly:

"If anyone says that the one true God, our Creator and Lord, cannot be known with certainty by the natural light of human reason by means of the things that are made, let him be anathema" (De Revel., can. I)

If Vatican II conceded to this premise - that modern man cannot know God from the light of reason - then its entire project is established on a positive denial of Catholic dogma. If modern man cannot obtain from his senses and his reason that the created order renders the tangibility and credibility of the Creator, then an entirely new way to reach him is required to communicate the truths of Catholic faith with him. This very thing the council undertook with the experiment of philosophical personalism, which is to say the appeal to man's consciousness and personal subjective experiences.

Gaudium et spes goes further in its analysis. It cites the primacy of science as the guiding principle of knowledge for modern man and urges the Church to "keep up" with science:

May the faithful, therefore, live in very close union with the other men of their time and may they strive to understand perfectly their way of thinking and judging, as expressed in their culture. Let them blend new sciences and theories and the understanding of the most recent discoveries with Christian morality and the teaching of Christian doctrine, so that their religious culture and morality may keep pace with scientific knowledge and with the constantly progressing technology. Thus they will be able to interpret and evaluate all things in a truly Christian spirit.

So, what we have here in the description of modern man is philosophical agnosticism informed by scientism. For the reader, it is important to understand that in classical Catholic categories of knowledge (epistemology) that the natural sciences and metaphysics were both contained under the general heading of philosophy. As Pascendi gregis teaches, the Modernist is at root driven by his agnosticism - that God cannot be known by the light of reason alone, and that God can never be the formal object of science or history. 

If this is the case, then traditional means of preaching the gospel will be ineffective. It is helpful to recall that atheism was blanketing nearly half the globe during the council (1962-1965) in the form of communism. Our Lady of Fatima warned that Russia (in the form of the U.S.S.R.) would fill the world with its errors unless the supernatural means of her intervention were applied by faith (the Pope in union with all bishops consecrating Russia to her immaculate heart). Of course, the traditional means of preaching the gospel are always effective because there is no constitutive change to the essence of man. There is, as Dietrich Von Hildebrand argued in Trojan Horse in the City of God "no such thing as modern man." Yet Vatican II not only identified such an object as modern man, it aimed the entirety of its appeal to him. The titles bear this out: Gaudium et spes is styled Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World; Nostra aetate literally means, "in our time." Pope John XXIII in the opening address to the council uses the phrase "nowadays" to amplify his ethic of aggiornamento, an Italian word that translates roughly to 'updating' or in a more literal rendering, 'today-ing.'

What this commitment to reaching modern man in ways deemed accessible to him required was - whether by intention or naivete - a subordination of faith to science, of theology to philosophy. We speak not of a plenary subordination of all Vatican II content here, but an overarching ethic of condescension to a modern man who (as the theory purports) would not accept the traditional presentation of the gospel. If modern man rejected natural theology (God cannot be the direct object of science or history) and the motives of credibility were outside his reach (miracles, prophecy, ecclesiastical authority) then a new 'pastoral language' was required to package the eternal truths of the Catholic religion in ways palatable to him. 

In Pascendi (§26), St. Pius X warned that the defining mark of the Modernist reformer is the desire to harmonize and reconcile divine truth with secular philosophy:

"They demand that philosophy be revised in such a way as to satisfy the needs of modern thought... and that theology be brought into harmony with modern science."

This summarizes exactly what Gaudium et spes prescribes:

Let them blend new sciences and theories and the understanding of the most recent discoveries with Christian morality and the teaching of Christian doctrine, so that their religious culture and morality may keep pace with scientific knowledge...

In this construct scientific knowledge runs ahead and theology tries to 'keep up.' Here is the inversion of philosophy and theology. Why is this a friction point? In classical Catholic epistemology, Sacred Theology is the Regina Scientiarum (Queen of the Sciences). Her principles are drawn directly from Divine Revelation, which is immutable, perfect, and complete. Lower, profane sciences (physics, sociology, psychology) were meant to be judged, corrected, and ordered by theology.

By commanding religious teaching to "keep pace" with rapidly shifting secular theories, Gaudium et spes inverts this hierarchy:

Theology in the Passive Role: Divine doctrine is no longer the fixed, supreme standard against which profane theories are tested; rather, doctrine becomes a fluid discipline that must constantly adjust itself to avoid falling behind the latest secular consensus.

The Validation of Evolutionism: It assumes that modern secular culture is engaged in a process of true upward "progress" to which the Church must adapt, rather than a spiritual and intellectual decline driven by post-Enlightenment rationalism.

As Pius X concluded in Pascendi,

Thus it is evident that [for the Modernist] science is to be entirely independent of faith, while on the other hand, and notwithstanding that they are supposed to be strangers to each other, faith is made subject to science.

The purpose of this essay is not to accuse Vatican II of theological errors or the heresy of Modernism. It is simply to attempt a clarification of who this modern man is, what the architects of Vatican II believed about him, and how this rubric drove the process of its documentary development and subsequent implementation of its reforms. 

If the road to external revelation is [as assumed by the Modernist] closed, then "it must be looked for in man; and since religion is a form of life, the explanation must certainly be found in the life of man" (Pascendi gregis §7). This brings us to Pope John Paul II and his philosophical commitment to phenomenology. 

Phenomenology is the opinion that man interprets reality through his personal subjective experiences of himself as reflected in his self-consciousness. Perhaps out of boundless sympathy for modern man Karol Wojtyla intended to erect a philosophical system where men could "find themselves in Christ" (Redemptor hominis §11) by matching their interior hunger for truth, beauty, and goodness with a recognition of their dignity and worth:

In reality, the name for that deep amazement at man's worth and dignity is the Gospel, that is to say: the Good News. It is also called Christianity. This amazement determines the Church's mission in the world and, perhaps even more so, "in the modern world". This amazement, which is also a conviction and a certitude - at its deepest root it is the certainty of faith, but in a hidden and mysterious way it vivifies every aspect of authentic humanism - is closely connected with Christ. (Redemptor hominis §10)

It is beyond the scope of this essay to develop the implications of Wojtyla's phenomenology, but suffice to say it completely replaces the classical structure of Scholasticism with a new, novel understanding of reality as intuited by personal experience as the starting point. St. Thomas' scholastic philosophy begins with God, expands to creation, then to man. Revelation comes to man from outside himself. In Wojtyla's system revelation is discovered within himself by the experiences of his innate dignity as one to whom Christ has united himself forever. This system which blossomed from the soil of modern man as described above eventually dissolves all objective truth. Again, St. Pius X warns in Pascendi,

Here it is well to note at once that, given this doctrine of experience united with the other doctrine of symbolism, every religion, even that of paganism, must be held to be true. What is to prevent such experiences from being met within every religion? In fact that they are to be found is asserted by not a few. And with what right will Modernists deny the truth of an experience affirmed by a follower of Islam? With what right can they claim true experiences for Catholics alone? Indeed Modernists do not deny but actually admit, some confusedly, others in the most open manner, that all religions are true.

This brings us directly to the Assisi Prayer Meetings where John Paul II gathered adepts of all the world's religions to pray for peace. Here, the Pope orchestrates a cacophony of diverse beliefs, luminaries, and praxis in a single tapestry of felt sincerity legitimized by his understanding that 

"...in every authentic religious experience, the most characteristic expression is prayer. Because of the human spirit’s constitutive openness to God’s action of urging it to self-transcendence, we can hold that “every authentic prayer is called forth by the Holy Spirit, who is mysteriously present in the heart of every person.” (Address to the Members of the Roman Curia, 22 Dec. 1986, n. 11; L’Osservatore Romano English edition, 5 Jan. 1987, p. 7).

To which St. Pius X replies,

Let us for a moment put the question: if experiences have so much value in their eyes, why do they not attach equal weight to the experience that thousands upon thousands of Catholics have that the Modernists are on the wrong road? It is, perchance, that all experiences except those felt by the Modernists are false and deceptive? The vast majority of mankind holds and always will hold firmly that sentiment and experience alone, when not enlightened and guided by reason, do not lead to the knowledge of God. What remains, then, but the annihilation of all religion, - atheism? (Pascendi §39)

Who is modern man? Modern man is a myth. There is no modern man. Man is the same as he always has been and the truth of the Gospel comes to him from outside himself by way of preaching:

How then shall they call on him, in whom they have not believed? Or how shall they believe him, of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear, without a preacher?  15 And how shall they preach unless they be sent, as it is written: How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, of them that bring glad tidings of good things! (St. Paul to the Romans, 10, 15-16)

Whatever the motives of Popes John XXIII and Paul VI their methodology - to condescend to a modern man who in fact does not exist - it ended up in dissolving the traditional, classical construct of the degrees of certainty: revelation is from God and the science of divinity is above all sciences and judges all sciences. The role of philosophy is not to command, but to serve theology in a subordinate role. The natural sciences observe data and reason about it. Metaphysics take it upward in the direction of first causes. Philosophy refines metaphysics by synthesizing the conclusions of right reason. But always - always - at the top of epistemological structure is the Queen of Sciences, theology. 

It is not the purpose of this essay to question the motives of the conciliar Popes, the council fathers, or anyone genuinely perplexed by the current ecclesial crisis. Charity is always ready to believe the best about everyone. We must however grapple with things as they are and what they are becoming. If the mythical modern man can only find revelation from within himself and his subjective experiences, every attempt to meet him there is the removal of another brick in the foundation of Catholic epistemology. Theology is the Queen of sciences. Philosophy is the handmaiden of theology. That is a divine structure that can only be contradicted or resisted with disastrous results.