The critical scholar is not committed, within the area of
his research, to accepting the Church's presuppositions about
Jesus, but he should not be committed to accepting naturalistic
presuppositions either. If he does accept the latter, then the
results of his research will in all probability contradict the
beliefs of the Church, but this is because he has begged the
question from the start. In examining, for instance, the
evidence for the virginal conception [of Jesus], if he begins
with the presupposition that such an event is impossible he
will end with the same conclusion; if he begins with the
presupposition that it is possible he may end with the
conclusion that the evidence for it is good or that it is bad
or that it is inconclusive. This is as far as scholarship can
take him. The Christian will accept the virginal conception as
part of the Church's faith.

In the rare cases where faith appears to be contradicted by
scholarship whose conclusions have not been prescribed from the
start, [the critical scholar] may be cast down but will not be
destroyed. For he will know how temporary and mutable the
conclusions of scholarship essentially are, and he will also be
conscious that he himself may not have perfectly comprehended
the Church's faith.