lucem ac tenebras

"According to Aquinas the meaning of Scripture is very far from self-evident and we must often interpret in the light of other truths if a literal interpretation is really and flatly contradicted by an obvious fact we can only say that the literal interpretation must be a false interpretation but the fact must really be an obvious fact and unfortunately nineteenth century scientists were just as ready to jump to the conclusion that any guess about nature was an obvious fact as were seventeenth century sectarians ready to jump to the conclusion that any guess about Scripture was the obvious explanation. Thus private theories about what the Bible ought to mean and premature theories about what the world ought to mean have meat in loud and advertised controversy especially in Victorian time and this clumsy collision of two very impatient forms of ignorance was known as the quarrel of science and religion. But Saint Thomas had scientific humility – he did not like a modern specialist study the worm as if it were the world but he was willing to begin to study the reality of the world in the reality of the worm. He Aristotelian simply meant that the study of the humblest fact will lead to the study of the highest truth."