Woody Allen vs. Garrigou

See Bill Vallicella's recent post at Maverick Philosopher.

Catena aurea electronica

It is well known that Thomas devoted considerable time and effort to deepen his knowledge of patristic sources, as can be exemplified by his composition in the early 1260’s of what is known as the Catena aurea on the Gospels.

Recent studies have established that Thomas’ Catena aurea is not merely a compilation of patristic texts but an extensive reworking and reordering of existing sources as well as sources for which he actively searched and of which he had Latin translations made.

Given that the standard Marietti edition contains many textual deficiencies and lacks an identification of the sources, for some years now, an edition is underway which aims to remedy these deficiencies.

Under the direction of Martin Morard and Carmelo Conticello of the CNRS in Paris, an electronic edition of the Catena aurea is being prepared (or as the full title has it: Thomae de Aquino Catena aurea. Editio scientifica electronica, fontibus repertis textuque emendato,  éd. Giuseppe Conticello,  Martin Morard, coll. Fabio Gibiino et alii).

The project has a most informative website with information on the ratio of the electronic edition, secondary literature, a survey of printed editions, concrete examples of how Thomas went about in composing the Catena, etc.

But most importantly, perhaps, for each Gospel there is a PDF-file of the text with the most up to date version of the text and the identification of the sources so far.

Here is the website: https://big.hypotheses.org/catena-aurea.

Thomism and the death penalty

Edward Feser and Joseph Bessette's new book By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic Defense of the Death Penalty and the Pope's recent remarks on the death penalty have revived the Catholic debate on the topic.

The death penalty has been discussed in several posts here at Thomistica over the years: here, here, here, here, and here. Most of these posts were authored by Steve Long.

On Friday Catholic World Report published an essay of mine entitled "Is opposition to the death penalty Thomistic?" In it I compare Pope Francis's remarks with St. Thomas's teaching. I think the Holy Father's defense of Amoris laetitia as Thomistic encourages this sort of exercise. I also assume that my discussion may be of interest to some of our readers.

A Franciscan and Pope Francis

Last week Thomas Weinandy, OFM, Cap., made public a letter that he had written Pope Francis at the end of July. In the letter Weinandy expresses his concerns over various aspects of Francis’s pontificate. Here’s how Weinandy sums up his concerns toward the beginning of the letter:

Your Holiness, a chronic confusion seems to mark your pontificate.  The light of faith, hope, and love is not absent, but too often it is obscured by the ambiguity of your words and actions.  This fosters within the faithful a growing unease.  It compromises their capacity for love, joy and peace.

Weinandy then goes on to offer some examples of the words and actions of Francis that have troubled him. You can find the complete letter here together with Weinandy’s explanation of his motivations.

Weinandy has written a number of books on theological topics. Does God Suffer? and Does God Change? The Word's Becoming in the Incarnation, both published in 2000, are perhaps his best known. He has taught at a number of Catholic academic institutions in the US and from 1991 to 2005 taught at the University of Oxford. From 2005 to 2013 he was the Executive Director of the Secretariat for Doctrine and Pastoral Practices of the USCCB. In 2013 Pope Francis awarded him the Pro Pontifice et Ecclesiae medal. Weinandy is also a member of the International Theological Commission.

After he made his letter to the Pope public, the USCCB asked Weinandy to resign from his position as a consultant to the Committee on Doctrine. (The USCCB statements on the matter are here and here.) I think that this was an unfortunate move. Weinandy is obviously an accomplished theologian and a true vir ecclesiasticus. I hope that the bishops will reconsider.

Is the Correctio Correct?: NEW

Change: I was looking at a summary and not at the seven articles that they mention are heretical.  I posted too quickly.  The seven articles are on pp. 8-9.  The references to Church documents of varying weight are on pp. 17ff. Note that footnote 8 is divided into several parts.  It seems to me hard to fault the document after my more careful reading, but am still unsure.  Has anyone seen any doctrinal criticisms of this document that seem reasonable?   The seven articles seem obviously heretical or very close to heresy.  I suppose you might criticize it for uncharitably saying that the Pope is propagating them.  I don't know.  

http://www.correctiofilialis.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Correctio-filialis_English_1.pdf

Dignitatis humanae: contradiction or continuity?

I've discussed Thomistic and Catholic political thought on Thomistica several times in the past. The posts I can remember are here, here, here, and here.

For our readers who are interested in such discussions, in this post I offer not my own reflections again but information about a discussion at another website. The Regensburg Forum is hosting an exchange between Thomas Pink and Steven Wedgeworth on the relationship between the Vatican II declaration on religious freedom, Dignitatis humanae, and past Church teaching. Here's the first paragraph of the editors' introduction to the exchange:

The editors of The Regensburg Forum are pleased to host an exchange between Dr. Thomas Pink and Pastor Steven Wedgeworth on the coherence and historical context of the Roman Catholic Church’s teachings on the state’s obligations to facilitate true religion, specifically as expressed in the most comprehensive and authoritative of its modern documents, Dignitatis Humanae. Wedgeworth recently wrote a series for the online forum The Calvinist International, in which he argued that Dignitatis Humanae, rather than crystallizing the Catholic Church’s teaching on religious freedom and coercion, exacerbates the problem of Roman interpretation and ultimately reveals a contradiction at the heart of Roman claims to unbroken doctrinal development. Dignitatis Humanae, on Wedgeworth’s account, contradicts historic Roman teaching on Church and state. Consequently, we ought not view the current conflicts between so-called progressive and conservative factions under Francis’ papacy as aberrant, but rather as another reflex caused by the inherent contradiction in Roman teaching on conscience, coercion, Church, and state.

I think this will prove to be an interesting exchange.

The Regensburg Forum went online a year ago. If you haven't heard of it, here's an excerpt from their "about" page:

The Regensburg Forum is a public online forum that exists to promote informed and scholarly dialogue between the Roman Catholic and Reformed Protestant traditions. Special attention is paid to the importance of the Augustinian legacy of Western Christianity, which both traditions inherit and develop. Recognizing that the proliferation of early and late medieval theology and the original protest of the Reformers relied heavily upon creative deployments of Augustinian thought in philosophy and theology, we take the Augustinian tradition to be a primary point of departure for study and research. We are convinced that careful research in an Augustinian key will help to bring Roman Catholic scholarship closer to the orthodox and scholastic heart of Reformed thought, while also allowing the discontinuities of Reformation thought with Roman Catholicism to be studied in light of remarkable and overarching continuities.

I encourage you to pay The Regensburg Forum a visit!

Descartes vs. Aquinas (and other scholastics) on the senses, the imagination, God, and the soul

In Summa theologiae, Ia, q. 75, a. 1, Aquinas writes:

[A]d inquirendum de natura animae, oportet praesupponere quod anima dicitur esse primum principium vitae in his quae apud nos vivunt animata enim viventia dicimus, res vero inanimatas vita carentes. Vita autem maxime manifestatur duplici opere, scilicet cognitionis et motus. Horum autem principium antiqui philosophi, imaginationem transcendere non valentes, aliquod corpus ponebant; sola corpora res esse dicentes, et quod non est corpus, nihil esse. Et secundum hoc, animam aliquod corpus esse dicebant.

In Discours de la méthode, AT, 37, Descartes writes:

Mais ce qui fait qu'il y en a plusieurs qui se persuadent qu'il y a de la difficulté à le connaître [i.e., God], et même aussi à connaître ce que c'est que leur âme, c'est qu'ils n'élèvent jamais leur esprit au delà des choses sensibles, et qu'ils sont tellement accoutumés à ne rien considérer qu'en l'imaginant, qui est une façon de penser particulière pour les choses matérielles, que tout ce qui n’est pas imaginable leur semble n'être pas intelligible.

But then, after seeming to express the same insight as Aquinas, Descartes goes on to suggest that people who accept the dictum according to which “n'y a rien dans l'entendement qui n'ait premièrement été dans le sens” (“nihil est in intellectu quod non sit prius in sensu”) have the same problem. Indeed, the dictum itself is an indicator of that problem!

Ce qui est assez manifeste de ce que même les philosophes tiennent pour maxime, dans les écoles, qu'il n'y a rien dans l'entendement qui n'ait premièrement été dans le sens, où toutefois il est certain que les idées de Dieu et de l'âme n'ont jamais été. Et il me semble que ceux qui veulent user de leur imagination, pour les comprendre, font tout de même que si, pour ouïr les sons, ou sentir les odeurs, ils se voulaient servir de leurs yeux : sinon qu'il y a encore cette différence, que le sens de la vue ne nous assure pas moins de la vérité de ses objets, que font ceux de l'odorat ou de l'ouïe; au lieu que ni notre imagination ni nos sens ne nous sauraient jamais assurer d'aucune chose, si notre entendement n'y intervient.

Descartes is either unaware of the scholastic explanation of the dictum (cf. e.g., De veritate, q. 2, a. 3, ad 19) or doesn’t accept it. My hunch is that it’s the latter. But not being an expert on Descartes, I would be glad for help on this.

Demonstrating the Sacraments as the Spiritual Heartbeat of the Church

Roger W. Nutt’s new work, General Principles of Sacramental Theology, is a significant and timely contribution to the field of sacramental theology, one which will fill a long-standing void in the Thomistic theological landscape.

Perhaps the most important aspect of the work is its salient analysis of modern thought and its relation to the pursuit of wisdom. In general, the field of sacramental studies in recent years has largely stood as a sort of microcosm for the wide-ranging contemporary predilection to de-spiritualize everything which it touches. However, what Nutt has done is to properly situate the sacraments within a worldview which strives toward wisdom and real spiritual progress. This ultimately lays the ground work for an understanding of the sacraments which transcends modernity’s proclivity to see even religious practice as entirely experiential, technocratic, and ultimately anthropocentric. The fundamental claim that the sacraments are "visible tokens of God's action"(21) in the world animates the particular theological analyses which comprise the book, allowing them to speak once again to the human desire for wisdom and virtue (rather than remaining dusty, old Thomistic principles of interest only to the curator of ideas). Proper sacramental theology is indeed wedded to Christianity’s claim that mankind is drawn in a supernatural way toward union with God.

Nutt roots sacramental efficacy in the power of Jesus Christ and the Paschal Mystery which is the center point of salvation history. The problem of sin is met with the salve of the sacraments, which not only heal but also elevate man to communion and participation with the divine life itself.

As such, Nutt provides an overview of the sacraments which includes careful considerations of each essential element of Thomistic sacramental theology. For the sake of brevity, I will simply list the most important of those principles: an historical and speculative treatment of the sacraments as signs, sacramental form and matter, ministerial intention, the necessity of the sacraments, sacramental causality and grace (ex opera operato), sacramental character, the institution and authority of the sacraments, and the tripartite sacramental formula of the sacramentum tantum, rest et sacramentum, and res tantum.

While Nutt gives a detailed primer on each principle, he also explores the thought of contrasting theologians and theories. For example, after considering St. Thomas’ theory of instrumental efficient causality, Nutt examines the occasional causality of Duns Scotus, the moral causality of Melchior Cano, as well as some of the views of the Reformers. This analysis not only aids the reader in providing a broader context within which to situate St. Thomas’ views but also helps to clarify those views by way of contrast.

Throughout the work, Nutt cites major figures of the Catholic intellectual tradition but remains in fruitful dialogue and contact with a varied group of modern theologians such as Bernhard Blankenhorn, John Gallagher, Reginald Lynch, Thomas Weinandy, and Sr. Judith Kubicki.

It seems that Nutt’s work has been highly successful in what it sought to achieve, that is to “to address a current lacuna in English-language theological literature” which has been present largely since the publication of Bernard Leeming’s Principles of Sacramental Theology some six decades ago. I believe that it may even be said that Nutt's work transcends Leeming’s work in multiple ways, not least of which with its clarity, coherence, and purposeful consideration of the very foundational principles of solidly Catholic, Thomistic sacramental theology.

The book works at once both to reinvigorate the mind of the sacramental scholar and to introduce the novice to the basic precepts which are fundamental for sacramental study. This book is a must-have for anyone interested in sacramental theology, and ought to immediately become the go-to authority and text for introducing students to the sacramental theology of St. Thomas and its relation to competing sacramental theologies. As such, it appears to me that this work will become an absolutely essential and formative piece of the discussion of sacramental theology for years to come.

It must, of course, be noted that the work is not simply a manual of important sacramental principles. General Principles is itself a speculative contribution to the field insofar as it re-engages fundamental questions in light of what Nutt characterizes as the via moderna of seeing all sacramental practice through the lense of experience, mere history, or anthropology.

Instead, Nutt has re-established the sacraments as the font from which the Church draws her hope and through which she is drawn back to God. Nutt states at the outset that “vital sacramental spirituality constitutes the very heartbeat of the Church,” (6). Rather than relegating sacramental theology to an examination of human ritual or seeing the sacraments as merely an extension of liturgical studies, General Principles restores sacramental study to its legitimate, theo-centric character. With controversies continuing to upset the Church regarding the theological understanding of the operation and reception of the sacraments, Nutt’s work is a true service and offering to the Church, guiding it back toward the Thomistic principles which demonstrate the sacraments and their life-giving pulse.

- Reviewed by Taylor Patrick O’Neill

How to Listen to Heretics (before burning them): How Today's Academy Might Aspire to be at least Medieval in Engaging the Other

Note: This development of a paper delivered to a Catholic Theological Society of America session on what today's academy might learn from Thomas Aquinas might be helpfully instructive for how we might listen to others who not only disagree with us, but who we believe teach or hold ideas that cause actual harm.

***

Heresy and Error: On Thomas’s Model of Really Listening to Others (Before Burning Them)

Robert Barry, Providence College Theology Department

            How might the academy today rise to the point where we might rightly and accurately be able to declare others heretics for what they teach or write? The possibility of a properly theological declaration of a teaching as heretical, and the one holding that teaching as a heretic deserving of exclusion from the academy, was a distinctively medieval achievement. A common understanding of the sources and the method of theological reasoning permitted the demonstration of a position as erroneous. This process of demonstrating the errors of one’s opponent by reasoned arguments drawn from commonly held principles is vividly evidentin Thomas Aquinas's Summa Contra Gentiles: Thomas engages the arguments of Photinians, Sabellians, Arians, Nestorians, Manicheans and more regarding the doctrines of the trinity and the incarnation. Thomas grounds his engagement with heretical teachings in a reasoned analysisof the source admitted by both himself and his opponents: the canonical scriptures. where he demonstrates the errors of heretics concerning the divinity of the Son of God. I will then consider how the theological academy might take instruction from this procedure in engaging the other today, when that "otherness" is constituted by an opposition of theological conclusions.

***

            Thomas divides his Summa Contra Gentiles into four books, and in each engages the arguments advanced on behalf of different possibilities for the subject at hand. The books differ, however, in method. The first three treat, in turn, God, Creation, and Providence as such things might be known through unaided reason. Book IV recapitulates this investigation of God, Creation and Providence, but now by reference to what is known through divine revelation. Thus this book takes up in turn God as Trinity, God's assumption of a created human nature in the Incarnation, and Divine Providence as ordering humans to a friendship with God manifested in Eternal Life.

            The arguments of the first three books are intended to persuade interlocutors of any stripe, as they assume nothing but what can be known through the power of reason common to all who might hear those arguments. This approach is properly regarded as a philosophical argument, treating theological topics but not grounding them on properly theological principles. Opposition to the conclusions demonstrated in these first three books is not evidence of lack of faith on the part of one's interlocutor; the argument begins in fact with the presumption that the other lacks the faith by which he or she would assent to revealed truths. One's conversation partner may be mistaken, obtuse or simply stupid, but would not properly be called a heretic.

            By contrast, Book IV of Thomas’s Summa Contra Gentiles is explicitly theological, and aims to engage those who would affirm the starting points proper to theology, namely, divinely revealed truth. In addressing the topics of the Trinity, the Incarnation and Eternal Life, Thomas sets forth the arguments of the heretics who deny the orthodox teachings on these questions, and then demonstrates the inadequacy of those arguments as the reason for rejecting those heretical and erroneous conclusions.

            First, a clarification on some technical use of terms. As with virtually everything else a scholastic theologian might address, Thomas categorizes the others with whom he engages in debate based on the degrees and principles by which they differ from him. Someone who is simply “other” in an absolute sense shares nothing in common with a speaker, and offers no point on which a conversation might pivot. But for Thomas, nobody truly falls into the category of being absolutely other; one will find basic principles that are self evident and operative in any exercise of reasoning or judgment, whether the other interlocutor adverts to them or not.

            Beyond those basic common operative principles, you may find commonly shared understandings or convictions upon which discussion and argument might proceed. Sometimes those points arise from the exercise of reason or from experience; in those cases, a discussion would proceed along philosophical lines, relying only on what a healthy use of reason can ascertain. Other times, those points arise from a common assent to revealed truth. Such assent can be partial, as when some texts are commonly accepted by two interlocutors as authoritative and revealed (as is the case between Christians and Jews with respect to the Torah).

            Other times, two parties in a conversation can agree about the totality of sources as authoritative, but differ in the understanding that emerges through argument from those sources. It is only in this last situation that a medieval scholastic theologian such as Thomas would properly speak of theological error and heresy. This is precisely the approach that Thomas takes in Summa Contra Gentiles IV, for there he seeks to set forth the argument of the “other” and engage it in terms of sources that those “others” would recognize as authoritative. He does this consciously, as is evident in editorial comments where he adverts to the sincerity of the reasoning of the opponents, but categorizes such reasoning as heretical or erroneous nonetheless.

            Thomas begins his engagement with Trinitarian heresies in Book IV by outlining the evidence for the divinity of the Son of God as articulated in scripture. The examples of this are legion, so Thomas presents a sample of where Jesus refers to himself, or is referred to by others, as the Son of the Father, where the Father clearly indicates "God": thus he cites the opening of Mark's gospel, which declares "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God," passages from John: "The Father loveth the Son and He hath raiseth up the dead, and giveth life to whom He will."(Jn 5:21), and Paul's letters, including a passage from Hebrews: "God who, at sundry times and in divers manners, spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, last of all in these days hath spoken to us by His Son."(Heb 1:1). Though Thomas admits it is not as common to find, he points to passages from the Old Testament that speak directly of the Son of God, such as Proverbs: "What is His name, and what is the name of His Son, if thou knowest?"(Prov 30:4)

            These citations are not cited as proof texts, but rather stand as placeholders for the full evidence to which he will refer as his argument progresses. The significance for his argument is that testimony to the title "Son of God" is not an isolated or rare bit of evidence, but rather something found widely in both testaments, with universal attestation by all authors of the New Testament. This establishes that, at the very least, there is one who is properly titled and proclaimed "The Son of God," and in light of the authority of the New Testament, Jesus is that same Son of God.

            Medieval authors were not without standard exegetical rules by which ambiguities and nuances in the texts might be clarified. Thus Thomas recognizes that the scriptures employ the term "Son of God" to refer to any number of individuals or groups, especially in the Old Testament where the kings of Israel, namely David and Solomon, are proclaimed the Lord's Son. The training in grammar and rhetoric that served as the prerequisite for the higher study of theology in universities and in houses of study would then be drawn upon to distinguish differences in predicating the title of "Son of God" of particular individuals. The fuller context of the passages cited earlier as authorities in the Old Testament as incipient declarations of God's Son show that such passages do not employ the title in the same sense as employed for human subjects. Thus, to the Psalm which declares "The Lord hath said to me: Thou art My Son," a declaration that might refer to David, cannot be rightly understood as referring to David when it continues "This day I have begotten Thee." and "I will give The the Gentiles for Thy inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth for Thy possession."(Ps 2:7-8) The fact that things are predicated of the Son of God in passages like this Psalm, but not properly of David or Solomon (neither of whom received the gentiles for their inheritance or came to possess the utmost parts of the earth), indicates that neither of these men are properly the one proclaimed here as the Son of God. What is stated here obliquely, that there is one who is properly the Son of God, foreshadowed by kings who are only called the "Son of God" in a qualified sense, is fully stated clearly and directly in the testimony of the New Testament authors.

            That God is capable of generation is evident from all the passages which speak of creation as a product or generation of God. Yet that the scriptures are speaking of a distinctive generativity of God, underlying the generation of created being, but referring more properly to a divine generation of God from God, is evident from the passages which speak directly of the Son of God as divine. Thus in addition to the passages Thomas cites which speak of that general property of generativity, he cites the straightforward and direct statement at the beginning of John's gospel: "Therefore, lest nothing more be understood by the words for "paternity," "sonship," and "generation" than the efficacy of creation, the authority of Scripture added something: When it was naming Him "Son" and "begotten", it was not silent about His being God, so that the generation mentioned might be understood as something more than creation." (SCG IV, Ch. 3 [1]) Thus while it is possible to regard passages about a Son of God and God "begetting" as referring to merely created realities, such created realities allegorically point to a reality that is only known by divine revelation. Thus Thomas concludes "Thus, then, are we taught from sacred Scripture that the Son of God, begotten of God, is God."

            In the next part of Book IV, Thomas addresses the Photinian, Sabellian and Arian opinions that are contrary to the above conclusion. In each case, Thomas identifies the biblical sources adduced by the heretics in their argument, concluding that Christ either is not the Son of God in any unique sense (the Photinians), nor begotten of God (the Sabellians), or truly God (the Arians). In each case, the position advanced by the heretic is partially true, but takes that partial truth as the touchstone in light of which other passages are subsequently ignored or willfully misread.

            Thus the Photinians take scripture's habit of"calling those who are justified by divine grace "sons of God"(SCG IV, Ch. 4 [2]) and interpret statements of Christ as the Son of God in that same sense. Thomas then develops that Photinian position further, even, by citing the reasons why it would seem appropriate to presume Christ to be the Son of God in that same sense: citing Christ's statement "All power is given to Me in heaven and in earth" (Mt 28:18), Thomas argues that if Christ was indeed the eternal Son of God, sharing in the divine nature without beginning or end, then it would make no sense for Christ to say that power was given to him in time. Likewise, statements that speak of Christ as "made" and as "predestined" seem contrary to the orthodox conclusion about the divinity of Christ. By these and other reasonings, Thomas argues to demonstrate the conclusion held by Photinians: "that by merit Christ acquired divine honor through grace and that He was not by nature divine." (SCG IV, Ch. 4 [9])

            Thomas addresses the conclusion of the Sabellians and the Arians in the same manner: he presents the arguments that are advanced on behalf of their positions, demonstrating how their conclusions follow from the starting points upon which they all can agree. But he then proceeds to show how that same body of evidence necessarily leads to conclusions contrary to the Sabellian and Arian positions, demonstrating an incoherence in the total positions of these thinkers.

            The arguments of the Arians command the most extended treatment by Thomas, who devotes the entirety ofChapter Six to explicating precisely how the Arian conclusion that Christ was a creature might be seen as following from a wide range of truths revealed in the New Testament and in the Old Testament. Thomas adds the insight that this conclusion seems to have arisen from the influence of Neoplatonic philosophy, through whose lens the passages cited would seem to give evidence for the Son of God as just such a preeminent creature.

            Thomas continues in Chapter Seven with an exposition of specific scripture texts that the Arians cannot intelligibly accept without contradicting their claim that the Son of God is a creature; this exposition presents overwhelming evidence, from the Old Testament and the New, that both directly and indirectly, in both what is done by the Son of God, and said by the Son of God, and said about the Son of God, that the Son is not a creature, but indeed is divine in the same sense that God the Father is divine. Since, however, as Thomas says "Truth cannot be truth's contrary,"(SCG IV, Ch. 8 [1]) it is not sufficient for Thomas to demonstrate simply that another position can be drawn from the scriptures, but rather, he dedicates Chapter Eight to an exposition of how the passages relied upon for concluding to the Arian position themselves cannot rightly be read in the sense that the Arians would take them.

            Thomas's response to the erroneous conclusions held by the Photinian, Sabellian and Arian heretics is a properly theological one: Thomas responds, not by merely citing the credal conclusions enunciated earlier, but rather by turning to the same sources recognized by all parties involved, namely sacred scripture, and demonstrating by reasoned argument both that the positions these others hold are incoherent in light of the totality of the scriptures they admit as authoritative, and that the particular passages upon which their positions depend are wrongly interpreted. For Thomas, these heretical positions are primarily the product of badly done theology. Theology that is done badly may arrive at some true conclusions; so, for example, the Arians and Photinians both rightly recognize over against Sabellius that the Son is begotten, and is not the Father, while the Sabellians rightly recognize the true divinity of the Son. But such positions, in toto, are simply erroneous.

***

            The strategy employed by Thomas in the Summa Contra Gentiles has parallels in the juridical procedures by which universities responded to masters or students who publicly wrote or taught erroneous positions.[1] The procedures clearly designated different categories by which a theologian might deviate from the truth of the faith: a theologian's teaching might be clearly erroneous, and directly contrary to the rule of faith, or his teaching might be found to be true, when interpreted rightly, but might just "sound bad" as they are stated. The judgment rendered, however, was about the truthfulness of the teaching that was written or spoken; it was a separate matter to determine the quality of the will of the one who had written or spoken the suspect teaching.

            In most cases, when those charged with rendering a finding did in fact determine some teaching to be erroneous or misleading, students or masters responded in humility, renouncing the error into which they had knowingly or unknowingly fallen and correcting their writing or subsequent teaching. Given the paucity of evidence for dramatic trials for heresy, it would seem that most correction was done informally, and proceeded without much public drama at all. Only when a scholar was shown evidence of the error of his teaching, and refused to adhere to the steps outlined as necessary steps for correction, would the scholar himself be regarded as a heretic, willfully and pertinaciously holding a teaching that had been duly declared heretical. Whatever subsequent civil penalties might accrue from the determination of heresy, the academic penalty was clear: one who taught error, and who did so with an irreformable and evil will, was to be excluded from the life of the academy. It might be worth noting that the notable cases and highly public cases of heretics burnt at the stake were not academic exercises, but primarily political: Jan Hus, Joan of Arc, Girolamo Savonarola and Giordano Bruno are perhaps best seen as (sometimes personally difficult) individuals who were caught up in the political dynamics of violence of their era, rather than as extreme examples of academic censure.

            Notably, these procedures were academic, and presumed that the scholar under investigation had not erred maliciously, but would respond to fraternal correction. Thus the rare instances where we have record for a final declaration of a scholar as a heretic were dramatic, and rare, precisely because the bar for such a declaration was so high: one needed to have demonstrated to the accused that what he publicly wrote or taught was indeed clearly erroneous, and the accused would have to have refused to reject that error. The failing of a heretic, then, was not merely an academic one, but a spiritual one; some deeper vice, whether that of pride or curiositas, occluded the heretic from having genuine faith, and led them to teach error consistently and knowingly in substitution for the true faith. Such a scholar was thus judged to be a danger, both to himself and to the academy, and was justly excluded from the life of the academy.

***

            What, then, might we learn from the example of the medieval academy, and from the approach of Thomas Aquinas in Summa Contra Gentiles, Book IV? It might seem rather insane to suggest we reintroduce the procedures for heresy trials into the modern academy; and I would agree. Yet a procedure that is capable of judging the theological merits of an academic’s work according to commonly recognized sources, principles and methods, as Thomas’s arguments do and as heresy proceedings should, would be far more preferable to the current procedures by which the theological academy includes or excludes scholars in its activity of study, teaching and writing, where the criteria for such inclusion or exclusion is sometimes far more arbitrary and decidedly untheological than the medieval practices themselves.

            The absence of heresy tribunals does not mean the academy employs no fora for rendering judgment on the suitability of a particular scholar for inclusion in the academy: from admissions committees to thesis committees, from hiring committees to tenure committees, from editorial boards to elections for boards of professional organizations, judgment is rendered regularly on the writings and teachings of theologians today. Yet any agreement among theologians about theological method today is severely limited, shared by specific subgroups or schools working bodies within academic theological societies, but hardly by the entire society itself, never mind shared by all the academic societies in toto.

            In the absence of broad agreement on the standards of what constitutes good or bad theology, decisions about the suitability of a theologian or a school of thought are necessarily made in such fora. The danger is that an essential distinction operative in the medieval procedures concerning heresy, and evident in Thomas’s engagement with heresies in his Summa Contra Gentiles Book IV, will be overlooked, and two distinct issues may be conflated. If academic theology fails to maintain the medieval distinction between judging whether the scholar’s teaching was erroneous, and determining whether that scholar would remain pertinacious in holding that error once it was pointed out, then to hold a position perceived as erroneous (from one’s perspective) is taken as evidence of a bad will itself in the one who holds such positions. Dialog and debate are then naturally replaced by the demonization of one’s opponents and the struggle to seize the power by which such demons may be exorcised from the respectable places in the academy. In the absence of common standards, the diversity of schools of thought that might be found in the middle ages (which consisted of differences within the common practice of academic theology) devolves in our age into a multiplicity of camps, staking claims to territory and defending them by whatever means are necessary. Without recourse to common criteria for good and bad theology, we find a perverse inversion of the procedure for medieval trials for heresy: one's opponent from a different camp has an evil will, and it is that evil will that results in his teaching a position opposed to one's own.

            Medieval charges of heresy, or even rightly of error, depend on the activities being common; in the academy today, I am afraid, the activities of the theologians assembled in the various gatherings of academic societies of theology today are merely diverse, and in the absence of the capacity for judgment of the truth of the teaching of those others, judgment is rendered on the person him or herself. Without common method or sources, we are not even at the point of understanding what other speakers or writers are trying to do, never mind being able to evaluate whether they are doing it well, and certainly not at the point of genuinely determining whether they are doing it with a good will or a genuine faith.

            In this respect, our academy is in the state of simply being "others" to one another, not capable of rightly understanding, judging or evaluating what the other is doing. In this respect, we are not up to the task of the reasoned engagement we see Thomas working at in Book IV of the Summa Contra Gentiles; I fear, we are not even operating at the level of engagement that marks the first three books. We are short of even understanding what dialog might be, or what it might mean, never mind being able to adequately engage in it. In this respect, the academy has devolved from the scholastic model by which universities engaged in cumulative and progressive activities, and returned to something more akin to the situation of theological camps operating from separated monastic schools, consisting of a small cadre of listeners under the tutelage of single masters whose activities and teachings make good sense to a small intended audience, but not to anyone else outside the abbey walls. In such a frame, the absence of charges of error and heresy would not be an achievement of unity and coherence, but rather a sign of its opposite.

     [1]  Here I am indebted to J.M.M.H. Thijssen, Censure and Heresy at the University of Paris, 1200-1400. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998.

Nazianzus: Possible to Conceive the Essence First, then the Persons

In a recent article, I critiqued certain iterations of the "Social Analogy" and what I call the "I - Thou" argument for the Trinity. 

In the course of the argument, I noted my agreement with Bruce Marshall (see his fine essay on the Trinity in The Thomist, 2010) that, even in the East, theological reflection sometimes begins with the one essence and subsequently adverts to the distinction of persons. Prof. Marshall adduced some evidence; I adduced some evidence. I would point to another text in G. Nazianzus, from the commonly available English translations: "When we look at the Godhead, or the First Cause, or the Monarchia, that which we conceive is One; but when we look at the Persons in Whom the Godhead dwells, and at Those who timelessly and with equal glory have their being from the First Cause--there are Three Whom we worship." (Theological Oration on the Holy Spirit, par. 14). I take this statement as indicative of the macro-structure of the Theological Orations.

Happy feast of St. Thomas Aquinas again!

January 28 is Aquinas’s liturgical feast according to the calendar of Paul VI. On that date in 1369 Aquinas’s relics were translated to the Dominican church in Toulouse.

March 7 is Aquinas's liturgical feast according to the pre-Pauline calendar of the Roman Rite. Aquinas died on that date in 1274 at the abbey of Fossanova, where he had stopped after taking ill on his way with Reginald of Piperno to the second Council of Lyons.

Both calendars are still in force in the Roman Rite.

Happy feast of St. Thomas Aquinas!

Ditto!

Praemotio Physica and Predestination

With the arrival of The Catholic University of America Press' Thomism and Predestination: Principles and Disputations, the questions pertaining to the Angelic Doctor's understanding of predestination and election have once again been brought to the fore of the Thomistic landscape. In looking through the many fine essays that make up this volume, it becomes clear how intimately linked are the questions of physical premotion and predestination. 

Certainly, some may take objection to their relation, especially those who deny that St. Thomas ever held to a doctrine of physical premotion at all. Still, while all Thomists will certainly agree that the grace whereby the elect are chosen (and thus whereby they merit their salvation) is gratuitous, the mechanism of how exactly that grace works to produce the salutary act with the human patient is still hotly disputed.

Many remind us that St. Thomas himself never used the term praemotio physica. While this is certainly true, it is argued by several within this volume that St. Thomas did indeed hold to the doctrine even if he did not explicitly use the term. Steven Long says, "...St. Thomas does affirm that there is a real motion bestowed by God to every creature, a motion that is ontologically prior to any action whatsoever on the part of any creature, including volitional action: and this is what “physical premotion” means. Those who reject the doctrine because Thomas does not use this precise formulation are exhibiting what one might call a semantic ipsissima verba-ism that obstructs their acknowledgment of Thomas’s manifest and express teaching," (pg. 54).

It is indeed true that St. Thomas states unequivocally that, "God moves man to act, not only by proposing the appetible to the senses, or by effecting a change in his body, but also by moving the will itself; because every movement either of the will or of nature, proceeds from God as the First Mover," (ST I-II, q. 6, a. 1, ad 3). Moreover, St. Thomas states, "When anything moves itself, this does not exclude its being moved by another, from which it has even this that it moves itself," (De malo, q. 3, a. 2, ad 4). 

Without the doctrine of physical premotion, questions are immediately raised as to the efficacy of the divine decrees and providential governance over creation. Certainly man participates as a secondary or instrumental cause in his own good action, culminating in the beatific vision for the elect. However, if God is not the primary cause of each and every good act, we may begin to ask whether the elect are distinguished by the grace of God or, conversely, by their own good cooperation with grace, rendering God somehow passive in regard to their distinction and election. 

In so many ways, this new volume on predestination highlights the intimacy between this doctrine of physical premotion and many other facets of the Thomistic theological tradition. In his own essay in the volume, Fr. Serge-Thomas Bonino, O.P. considers how physical premotion necessitates that evil be first permitted by the divine will, otherwise it could not be a part of the divine plan. That God's permission remains non-causal is argued in an essay by Fr. Thomas Joseph White, O.P. It is man who causes his own defect and sin, not God. Thomas Osborne considers how the Thomist ought to understand St. Thomas when he speaks of God causing the being of the sinful act but not that it be sinful. 

Joseph Trabbic explores the doctrine of praemotio physica as it relates to recent objections from Fr. Brian Shanley, O.P. Fr. Christopher Cullen, S.J. elucidates the ways in which premotion aids in a proper reading of St. Ignatius' Spiritual Exercises. 

Of course, not all of the essays in the volume deal explicitly with premotion. Roger Nutt contemplates beautifully an often over-looked aspect of this discussion, namely the central role of the Incarnation of Christ for the mystery of predestination. Also exploring the centrality of the Incarnation, Michael Dauphinais surveys St. Paul's spirit of joy in Ephesians, reminding the reader that God's loving election is a source of Christian hope. Fr. Romanus Cessario, O.P. considers the relation between devotion to Mary and election, especially as contemplated by Louis de Montfort. 

One of the aspects of this volume which will make it most attractive to Thomists of all stripes is the fact that it is a unified conversation with differing voices. The authors found within often disagree as to the fundamental meaning of the doctrines of physical premotion and predestination themselves. Lawrence Feingold presents an essay which tackles the question of the resistance of grace, arguing along similar lines to Jacques Maritain and Francisco Marín-Sola, two figures who certainly disagreed with, for example, Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, referenced favorably within the volume by Bonino, Trabbic, and others. 

Fr. Matthew Lamb unfolds the thought of Bernard Lonergan, whose own view in regard to premotion is far from the classical definition of physical premotion (a direct working on the will as an exterior principle which moves the will to will.) For Lonergan it is instead something closer to the bringing about of a contactus or proximity between two created beings which are already created and preserved in act, allowing one to act upon the other as cause of some effect.

Barry David considers the quantitative scope of salvation, arguing against St. Thomas that the assertion of a minority salvation mitigates the divine goodness. Michael Waldstein spars charitably with the thought of his friend and colleague Steven Long over Hans Urs von Balthasar, pure nature, and its relation to man's ordering to his supernatural end of beatitude. 

While each essay is worthy of speculation and contemplation, the most valuable character of the work is its discussion as a whole. At the center of any of the fruitful tensions, disagreements, and even concurrences between the individual essays is a sign of the Thomistic project once again collectively picking up these difficult but central questions.

Much of that discussion deals, at its core, with the way in which God causes the beatitude of His chosen, a fundamental theological principle for all Thomists. The differing understandings of physical premotion and its relation to human freedom and evil are certainly at the center of this fecund project. Each essay, whether it explicitly deals with premotion or not, is an important comment and addition to the Thomistic tradition on the nature of that doctrine. As such, while the volume addresses a myriad of issues and their relation to the mystery of predestination, it is an important contemporary consideration of praemotio physica. It is a must-read for anyone who is at all interested in predestination or the human dependence upon God for the good acts which are predestination's effect.

- Reviewed by Taylor Patrick O’Neill

In Memoriam: Fr. Lawrence Dewan, O.P. (1932-2015)

I view this post as a long (too long) delayed tribute to one of the greatest teachers, Thomists, and Christians I have had the privilege of knowing in my life.

John Lawrence Dewan was born in North Bay, Ontario, in 1932, and took the B.A. and M.A. at the University of Toronto in 1953 and 1955. He did his doctoral work in two stints, 1954–57 and again 1966–67, leading to his dissertation “The Doctrine of Being of John Capreolus: A Contribution to the History of the Notion of Esse” (1967), defended before a committee that included Owens, Pegis, and Edward Synan. In these years he also studied under Etienne Gilson and Marshall McLuhan.

His first published article, “Leslie Dewart and Spiritual Hedonism,” appeared in Laval théologique et philos­ophique 27 in 1971. Although to my knowledge no one has prepared a complete bibliography of Dewan’s voluminous writings, he published well over 100 major articles, a Marquette lecture, and two collections of the work he considered his best: Form and Being with CUA Press in 2006, and Wisdom, Law, and Virtue with Fordham University Press in 2008. Among his major concerns throughout his career were the doctrine of esse and how it relates to form and substance; the doctrine of analogy in its various theoretical constructions; the interpretation of the Five Ways of proving God’s existence; the relationship of natural philosophy to metaphysics, and the relationship of both to modern science; and the foundations of ethics and political philosophy. He sparred often with fellow Thomists such as Joseph Owens and the River Forest School. While it would be an exaggeration to speak of a “school” of Fr. Dewan, there is no doubt he shaped every facet of Thomism in the past fifty years.

How does one worthily honor the memory of a teacher who made an enormous difference in one’s own life and in the lives of so many friends and acquaintances? There is always something far greater, more abundant and varied in the person and his legacy than any homage can do justice to. For me, Fr. Dewan was three things to the fullest: a teacher who dearly loved his teacher, St. Thomas, as well as his students, all potential Thomists waiting to be actualized; an intellectual who never stopped studying, researching, and writing, constantly advancing the science of metaphysics and probing the rich relationship between modern-day subjects and the perennial insights of Aquinas; and a priest who lived his life not merely as a scholar or professor, but as a genuine disciple of Jesus Christ, walking along the particular path of the Order of Preachers founded by St. Dominic.

I was blessed with many experiences of all three sides of Fr. Dewan. I enjoyed several semesters of metaphysics with him at The Catholic University of America from 1994–1998. Can anyone who attended his classes forget the owl-like eyes that gazed through coke-bottle glasses, the face that lit up with excitement as he engaged the intricacies of being and essence, form and matter, act and potency? I still consult the detailed lectures and collections of texts he handed out at the start of each class, with my own annotations in the margins, based on his improvised commentary. I remember the course on the Five Ways in which he assigned student presentations, and I had the fortune (or misfortune) to choose Gilson on the Third Way, not realizing yet that Fr. Dewan—an ardent admirer of Gilson’s intellectual legacy—was a most severe critic of some of his interpretive moves. Needless to say, my presentation was subjected to the dialectical shredder and ended as a pile of slivers, but in the process I had grown in both knowledge and humility, the indispensable precursor of wisdom.

Towards the end of my time at CUA, I began to realize, in spite of the innate modesty and simplicity of this white-robed teacher, just what a formidable intellectual Fr. Dewan was. In class we always smiled when he looked up from his lecture notes, raised a forefinger, and said, brightening: “I have a paper on this topic!” (meaning a publication), but little did we greenhorns know at the time that he had published article after article on seemingly every question of importance in the field of classical metaphysics, natural theology, physics, cosmology, and philosophical psychology, with forays into logic, ethics, politics, aesthetics, cultural history, biography, and sacred theology (I’m sure the list could be extended). At a certain point I began to collect his work more systematically to deepen and diversify my own grasp of Aristotle, Plato, St. Thomas, and other scholastics devoted to the philosophia perennis. It wasn’t an easy quarry to track, as he published in so many different (often obscure) journals, and, accordingly, it brought me pleasure, relief, and good hope for future scholars when Fr. Dewan decided to put together two collections of his best workIf I could urge an action to be taken, it would be to get and study both of these collections. They are pure gold.

Beyond these official publications, Fr. Dewan conducted a substantial correspondence with people who asked him philosophical and theological questions. I remember submitting to him some knotty difficulties that arose from a reading of St. Thomas’s treatment of transubstantiation in the Tertia Pars of the Summa theologiae, and he replied with a mini-treatise of his own, making the distinctions I had failed to make. He often sent me papers of his own, either in response to my queries or just to share his recent work. He displayed no “proprietary” attitude over his writings and relished a vigorous debate, never giving the impression that he had heard or said the last word.

As for Fr. Dewan’s religious life and priestly identity, he was a wonderful combination of total transparen­cy and dignified reserve. You knew from the moment he entered the room in his white Dominican habit that he was a Catholic religious, and if you were in the right place at the right time you would see him involved in the celebration of Mass, but he discussed religious topics only when the subject of the class or a student question demanded it, and he neither pietistically mixed theology into everything nor arbitrarily excluded it from consideration—he was too much a son of St. Thomas Aquinas either to blur the lines of discourse or to compartmentalize and thus falsify reality. My warmest personal memories of him come from the semester he spent at the International Theological Institute in Gaming, Austria, where he co-taught a special seminar on Thomistic metaphysics and epistemology, and seemed to leave a gentle mark on the entire community’s academic and spiritual life. My wife and I remember with special fondness the Masses he celebrated in the campus church and how he would bless our little children so lovingly, not in any rush, and with joy lighting up his countenance.

Fr. Dewan’s dedicated students always wanted to show him how much they appreciated him, but it was not easy to find ways to do so with a man who was not exactly a social extrovert. I am glad to have spearheaded the publication with CUA Press of a Festschrift for Fr. Dewan’s seventy-fifth birthday in 2007, under the title Wisdom’s Apprentice, which brought together work by twelve authors, several of them students of his. When Fr. Dewan received his copy in the mail, the first thing he wrote to me—altogether typical of this dedicated intellectual—is that he found compelling so-and-so’s argument about the real distinction and couldn’t help but disagree with another fellow on a different point. He received the book simply as a philosopher in search of wisdom, not as a man looking for applause or resting on his laurels. It made me love him all the more.

One can say without hyperbole that Fr. Dewan’s life was dedicated to pursuing truth and handing it on with unstinting generosity. May he now behold the beauty of that truth unveiled.

Duns Scotus's Lost Island

As is well known Aquinas opposes the forced baptism of Jewish children because it would constitute a violation of “natural justice” (ST III, 68, 10 c). I knew that Duns Scotus encourages forced baptism, arguing that, while private persons such as the parents may not do so, a public person, in the form of a prince, under whose dominion the parents live, has a higher obligation to God and hence the prince has a duty to override the parental rights (… per consequens non solum licet, sed debet Princeps auferre parvulos a dominio parentum volentium eos educare contra cultum Dei, qui est supremus et honestissimus dominus, et debet eos applicare cultui divino, In Sent. IV, d. 4, q. 9, ed. Vivès, t. 16, p. 487b) (I wasn’t able to consult at this time the critical edition of these questions, which was published by the Scotist Commission in 2010).

With this position Scotus runs into difficulty with the view that, based on Rom. 9,27 (“… reliquiæ salvæ fient”) and Psalm 59,12 (“ne occidas eos, nequando obliviscantur populi mei.”), there should be a continued Jewish presence, even within a Christian society (see for instance Augustine, De civitate Dei, 18,46, ed. CCSL 48, pp. 644-645). Scotus himself recognizes this because, after quoting Rom. 9,27 he writes: “ideo Judaeos non oportet cogere totaliter ad Baptismus scipiendum et relinquendum legem suam” (ed. Vivès, t. 16, p. 489b).

At this point Scotus comes up with the outlandish idea of placing a small group of Jews on an island, allowing them to practice their faith.

“Et si dicas, quod visa destructione Antichristi, illi qui sibi adhaeserant, convertentur, dico pro tam paucis, et sic tarde convertendis, non oporteret tot Judaeos, in tot partibus mundi, tantis temporibus sustinere in lege sua persistere, quia finalis fructus de eis Ecclesiae est, et erit modicus. Unde sufficeret aliquos paucos in aliqua insula sequestratos permitti legem suam servare, de quibus tandem illa prophetia Isaeiae impleretur.” (ed. Vives, t. 16, p. 489b).

The Princeps Thomistarum, Johannes Capreolus, naturally discusses these views in his Defensiones theologiae. He rejects Scotus’ view on the role of the prince, arguing that “baptizari et credere non pertinet ad ius humanum vel civile, sed ad naturale vel divinum.” (ed. Paban/Pègues, t. 6, p. 119a).

He quotes exetensively from Petrus de Palude and concludes: “nec Imperator nec Papa debet filios infidelium ipsis invitis baptizare, quamdiu pueri ex jure divino vel naturali subsunt curae parentum. Et principalis ratio est: quia Deus prohibet ne infideles, aut eorum filii ante usum rationis, cogantur ad suscipiendum fidel vel baptismum. Sed specialis ratio est de parvulus: quia, hoc faciendo, fieret injuria parentibus, et contra jus naturale.” (ed. cit. 121b).

What about the outlandish idea of an island for Jews?

“Quinto, dicitur quod, quia divina praescientia et revelatio prophetica habet Judaeos per Antichristum fore pervertendos, et ad praedicationem Eliae convertendos, hoc solum debet sufficere ad propositum, quod scilicet non sunt cogendi in totum ad fidem, quia hoc esset frustra niti contra divinum praescientiam et revelationem; et, eadem ratione, neque in partem; et sic reclusio et sequaestratio illorum in quadam insula parum valeret.” (122a).

It would be interesting to know whether Scotus changed his mind and whether other Thomists responded to Scotus’ idea. So far as I know Cajetan does not mention this idea in his commentary on ST III, 68, 10.

Aquinas's use of the lex parsimoniae

We all know that Ockham's razor wasn't really Ockham's razor. He got the shaving device second hand from his predecessors, among them, Aquinas.

Below are some instances of Aquinas's use of it, which I have shamelessly lifted from Schütz's Lexikon. Schütz lists them in the entry for fieri (and you'll see why). I came across them last week and I thought it would be handy to gather them here for anyone who is interested in the topic.

Three things to note: (1) Of the instances from the Contra gentiles and the Summa theologiae below (which are all the instances save one), almost all are found in objections. The only one that isn't from an objection is the one from CG, I, 42 (the first one). (2) The instance from the commentary on the Physics (the last one) is used in explicating Aristotle's argument. (3) I made minor changes to the wording and punctuation of the second and last ones since I noticed discrepancies with the Leonine text.

Don't cut yourself!

*** 

quod sufficienter fit uno posito, melius est per unum fieri, quam per multa (CG, I, 42)  

quod potest sufficienter fieri per unum, superfluum est si per multa fiat (CG, III, 70)

quod potest compleri per pauciora principia, non fit per plura (ST, I, a. 2, arg. 2)

quod potest sufficienter fieri per unum, superfluum est, quod fiat per multa (ST, I, q. 108, a. 3, arg. 2)

quod sufficienter potest fieri per unum, non oportet, quod per aliquid aliud inducatur (ST, II-II, q. 22, q. 1, arg. 1)

quod potest fieri per unum, superfluum est plura ponere (ST, II-II, q. 45, a. 2, arg. 3)

quod potest fieri per unum, superflue fit per multos (ST, III, q. 82, a. 2, arg. 2)

Quod potest fieri per pauciora, superfluum est si fiat per plura (In Physic., I, l. 11, n. 14)

Save the unicorn!

This has almost nothing to do with Aquinas. But I invite you to consider my defense of the unicorn and examine your conscience. Perhaps unicorns would be an appropriate topic for a synod of bishops in Rome. I wonder what Walter Kasper thinks about them.

Godoy's Philosophical Works?

Does anyone know who might have plagiarized Pedro de Godoy's philosophical works.  Echard merely writes, "Opera ejus philosophica alii usurparunt, et inverecundi plagiarii sub proprio nomine typis ediderunt."  He mentions Calavieri's Galeria de'Pontefici Domenicani, p. 699, which is available on Google and does not explain in any more detail how to find the text itself or who might have published it.

German Theology and Philosophy vs Scholastic

After reading selections from The Pope Emeritus's interview on Vatican II, it occurred to me that twentieth-century German theology and its antecedents in some ways seem to share the same faults as medieval German thought (with the exception of St. Albert.)  I was reminded of this text from De Wulf's Philosophy and Civilization in the Middle Ages:

"Endowmentof the personal worth of the individual with metaphysical support; devotion to clear ideas and their correct expression; moderation in doctrine and observance of a just mean between extremes;  the combination of experience and deduction,-these are the characteristics, or, if you will, the tendencies, of the scholastic philosophy as it was elaborated by Neo-Latins and Anglo-Celts.    But,  in the Neo-Platonic group of German thinkers in the thirteenth century,  all of this is replaced by very different characteristics,­ fascination for monism and pantheism; mystic communion of the soul with Deity;  craving for extreme deduction; predilection for the study of Being, and of its descending steps;  aversion to clarified intellectualism;  delight in examples and metaphors, which are misleading and equivocal; and above ail the want of balanced equilibrium, in exaggerating certain aspects and doctrines regardless of all else."

For interview selections, see http://www.onepeterfive.com/benedict-xvi-admits-qualms-of-conscience-about-vatican-ii/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Onepeterfive+%28OnePeterFive%29