It is not infrequently said that the true justification of moral beliefs lies in theology. I wish here to examine precisely what is meant by this contention, and by what arguments, if any, it can be substantiated.

The view I am examining is not that the only valid reason for doing what is right is a theological reason (e.g. the fact that God wills it); as if we could know independently of theology what was right, but required a theological motive to make it reasonable to do it. It is rather that the very fact that it is right is logically dependent on certain facts of a theological nature; or, to express the matter otherwise, that from certain theological propositions it is possible validly to draw certain conclusions in the form of propositions which state what I ought to do, and that this fact is the source of the validity of these latter propositions.

This, however, is not yet a sufficiently precise account of the theory in question, since it might cover a number of different contentions, some of which I think may be reasonably maintained, while others, I think, may not. I propose to work towards a clearer formulation by considering certain arguments which have been advanced in order to deny outright the very possibility of arguing validly “from theology to ethics”; for I do believe that these arguments prove something, and rule out certain theories as untenable.

The present situation in philosophy is paradoxical. On the one hand, thinking men and women all over the world are exclaiming that, while science has made sufficient advance to satisfy all our material needs, what we most need, and must find if we are not to suffer shipwreck, is a new sense of values, a new religious awakening and a new orientation towards life, in short a new philosophy. On the other hand, many professional philosophers are coming to hold the view that philosophy has had its day, or rather that it never in any proper sense had its day, because it is not a rational enterprise but a mistake, an illusion, a farrago of nonsense, “a muddle arising out of the complexities of language.” A new inquiry which goes by the name of Analysis and resembles logic more closely than any other existing discipline is at once to give the quietus to philosophy and to reign in its stead. The modern philosopher cries, with Faustus, “Sweet Analytickes! 'tis thou hast ravished me.” I will not prejudice your minds at the outset by recalling where the study of analysis led the Doctor of Wurtemburg.

Those who are thus forthrightly sceptical about philosophy and group themselves under the aegis of analysis are themselves divided into a number of sects. One and all, however, are relentless in exposing the weaknesses of philosophy, zealous in proselytizing and deadly in expounding their new technique which combines scholastic subtlety with modern scientific realism. They represent in fact a modern scholasticism loosely grouped round the dogma: “We pursue logical analysis, but not philosophy,” though, by a curious paradox which demands scrutiny, some of them say: “Philosophy is analysis.”

Preoccupation with language is a notable feature of modern philosophy. Indeed, it is not too much to say that the influence of language on thought, and particularly its influence on philosophical thought, is a leading topic of philosophical discussion in this century. Every philosopher of any note, no matter what his general interests may be, has found it necessary to define his attitude to this problem. The attitude usually adopted consists of an admission that language does have a great influence on thought, and on philosophical thought in particular. More accurately, it is claimed that the structure and grammatical categories, and perhaps the vocabulary, natural to a particular language, determine the lines of thought and speculation open to any thinker who uses that language (Note 1).This determination is unimportant in many cases, because the results of our thinking are usually subject to check by appeal to empirical facts. In philosophical thinking, however, no such check is available by the very nature of the case. Accordingly, we cannot tell if the difficulty or apparent insolubility of a philosophical problem is due to the problem itself, or simply due to inadequacies in our language. In a different language, so it is suggested, the problem which is difficult for us might very easily be solved. Indeed, there might not then be any such problem, or its solution might be self-evident in this other language. This is the moderate attitude to the language difficulty in philosophy, and it is fair to say that it is almost universally adopted at the present day. In some circles it has acquired the prestige of an indisputable dogma.

The phrase philosophia perennis is said to have been first used by Leibniz. It has been adopted and freely employed by the Catholic Neo-Thomists, for whom it means a development of the Aristotelianism, modified by strong Neoplatonic elements, which Arabian scholars transmitted to the first Renaissance in the West. It claims also to be a return to the early Christian philosophy of religion, a fusion of Hellenistic and Jewish thought, the latter itself a syncretistic religion with many Persian and other borrowings. The controversy, directed against various modern philosophies, has been conducted with great ability by such writers as Gilson, Maritain, Sheen, Watkin, Dawson and D'Arcy, whose books would perhaps have received more attention from independent thinkers, but for the suspicion which surrounds apparent attempts to revive the methods and inhibitions of the medieval schoolmen.

There has been a parallel movement in the Orthodox Eastern Church, represented in Russian by Frank, Bardyaeff, Solovioff and Lossky. These writers are more Platonic and more fearlessly mystical than the Thomists. Origen in the East has more weight than Augustine.

After an interruption of seven years I take up once again my surveys of Italian philosophy. Many things have happened in the interval, but it is perhaps too soon for them to be susceptible of calm philosophical reflection. The problems that most interest the cultured public to-day are those of existentialism, of historicism and its limits, of German romanticism, and, more generally, of Germanic culture in relation to new spiritual orientations. The interest in existentialism is due, at least in part, to the fact that it is the philosophy in fashion. But there is in it nevertheless a depth of seriousness that is not overlooked. The tragedies of recent years have placed in the foreground the problems of immediate existence, of human personality and its place in the world, which the preceding idealistic philosophy had too easily absorbed in an impersonal and trans-subjective view of the spirit and its universal values. And, as has often happened in the course of history, there has resulted a reaction of individuality, in its most irrational and vital expressions, against the pretensions of reason to dominate it from above, and imprison it in the net of its concepts.

But if, in this regard, existentialism represents a just demand, which can exercise a beneficial influence on philosophical thought, yet to many its claim to represent a new era in philosophy seems excessive. Its value is only that of an episode. Hence some interpreters of contemporary thought have been drawn to limit the importance of the new movement.