As the Church grew in the range and depth of her doctrine, so must she forever grow. The problems that distract her must increase. With each generation, those problems change their expression, for the forms of thought are the most mobile and uncertain of all human construction.
A cathedral lasts longer than a philosophy and a haunting song outlives the latest system of metaphysics. Questions are settled only that the restless mind of man may add another difficulty to the solution that allayed its previous doubt. Rapier-like in its power to find the weak joint in the armor, reason, sharpened by scientific criticism, picks here and there at the composition of the Creed. New conditions, new discoveries, new languages, require new attitudes, new difficulties, and new adjustments of old principles. Obviously, it is not sufficient to know the rules of the art. The great trouble and anxiety comes in the application of those rules.
So, too, is it in the Faith. The articles of belief seem at times to suggest contradictory answers to the problem that happens to be perplexing our minds at the moment. According to one mystery, there is one solution. According to a second mystery, there is another. How to choose and select, to decree without fear or favor, without danger of mistake, is the work of the Church.
Not merely in the broad line of the Church, but in the individual soul, the same task must go on—the balance between what has to be discarded as of passing significance and what is of abiding import. I have to discover for myself which is the mere adventitious dressing of some bygone form of thought and which is of enduring truth. Not indeed for myself, since in the Church abides forever the indwelling of the Spirit of God.
