Changes to International Theological Commission's Web Page?

A Saturday press release by the International Theological Commission announces that it has “renovated, reorganized, and updated” its web page.

The ITC was instituted by Paul VI on April 11, 1969, following a proposal made by the first Ordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops. According to the ITC’s statutes, as set forth definitively in John Paul II’s apostolic letter Tredecim Anni of 1982 (since 1969 the statutes had only been provisory), ”[i]t is the duty of the International Theological Commission to study doctrinal problems of great importance, especially those which present new points of view, and in this way to offer its help to the Magisterium of the Church, particularly to the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to which it is attached.”

The apostolic letter further explains that ”[t]he members of the International Theological Commission are appointed by the Supreme Pontiff, to whose judgment the Cardinal Prefect of this Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith will make proposals, after having listened to the episcopal conferences. Such members are appointed for five years, after which they may be reappointed. They should not number more than thirty, except in particular cases.”

Tredecim Anni designates the Cardinal Prefect of the Sant’Uffizio as the president of the ITC. Currently that post is filled by William Levada, formerly Archbishop of San Francisco. The general secretary of the ITC is Serge-Thomas Bonino, OP, who was appointed only last year to take the place of Charles Morerod, OP, after the latter was made bishop of the Diocese of Lausanne, Geneva, and Fribourg in Switzerland.

Saturday’s press release does not make clear exactly what changes were made to the ITC page. (Hence, the question mark in the title of this post.) It says, for instance, that “the renovated web page of the Commission opens with a brief historical and institutional description (Profile).” The “profile” has always been a standard feature on the web pages of the various dicasteries of the Roman Curia and their affiliates. And I could be mistaken but I believe that the ITC page was not an exception. I seem to recall looking at the profile in the past.

The press release then goes on to describe other elements of the ITC page, most of which, I think, have always been there.

Are the links in a different order? Have some been consolidated? Were documents posted that had not been posted before? Are there new translations of some documents? No such details are given.

Regardless of what has been changed and what hasn’t, the three most valuable resources on the page are probably the digital versions of the ITC’s official documents, the papal addresses to the ITC, and the texts of the individual contributions of ITC members to its research.

The press release concludes by noting that it is the “lively hope of the Commission that the renovated web page might be a helpful and stimulating instrument for the consultation of documents by those who are interested, first of all bishops, theologians, priests and consecrated persons but also students and other faithful the world over, even where it is hard to come by [the Commission’s] publications.”

Perhaps one of our readers who is better informed on this subject could enlighten us as to what precisely has been changed on the ITC page.

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UPDATE: One of Thomistica.net’s contributors, Robert Barry (Providence College), suggests that I use the Wayback Machine at the Internet Archive to compare the new ITC page with the old page to determine what changes were made (see RB’s comments below). I’m grateful for the tip but time travel makes me nervous. If I do decide to do it, perhaps I could offer to rewrite the ITC press release to make it more informative.

Publishing the Works of St. Thomas Aquinas

Thomistica.net just received this exciting message from Dr. Peter Kwasniewski of Wyoming Catholic College: 

The Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine is pleased to announce the publication this summer of St. Thomas’s Commentaries on the Letters of Paul.  This publication brings all the great Pauline commentaries together for the first time in a uniform hardcover bilingual edition, with Latin and English in parallel columns.  Visit our website to view PDFs of sample pages and to read more about this and other projects under way.

Between now and July 16, The Aquinas Institute is offering you an opportunity to buy, at a discount rate, the Commentary on Romans, or the entire set of Pauline commentaries, or even to reserve your copy of other works nearing completion: the Summa theologiae, the Commentary on John, and the Commentary on Matthew.  Click here for more information. 

All publications from The Aquinas Institute will feature the same outstanding qualities:

     -the best base texts available, in Latin and in English, reviewed for accuracy by a team of scholars

     -elegant and readable typeface

     -user-friendly layout

     -thick paper, suitable for writing notes on

     -strong hardcover binding

     -affordable pricing, including bulk discounts for classrooms

Armarium

The Post-Reformation Digital Library has recently added links and texts from the Polish Dominicans’ “Armarium”.  There are some excellent texts here, in particular some Thomist texts that I have not until this time been able to consult either in person or online.  It is really incredible.  The Internet has opened up 15th-, 16th-, and 17th-century Thomism to anyone who knows Thomas and can read Latin.  There is no longer any excuse for people who belittle the Commentators.  Thanks to the Polish Dominicans for these new (to me) texts. 

Interview with author of new philosophical lexicon

Nearly a year ago I posted an item about John Carlson’s philosophical lexicon Words of Wisdom. Carson has recently given an interview where he discusses the genesis of the project:

In the spring of 2000, shortly after the publication of Fides et Ratio, I taught a course in the Creighton University honors program on the renewal of the Thomist tradition, with a special focus on “speculative” philosophy—i.e., philosophy of nature, the human person, metaphysics, and God. The students were generally open to learning about the “perennial philosophy,” but they rightly complained of a lack of materials to help them master the quantity of new terms, with their complex interrelations, that were being presented. (A volume titled Dictionary of Scholastic Philosophy had been published by Father Bernard Wuellner, SJ in 1956; but it had been out of print for several decades, and nothing had replaced it.) By mid-semester I began developing and distributing pages of philosophical “glossary.” After that, the project kept expanding—almost taking on a life of its own—as I added terms from other branches of philosophy, especially moral and political philosophy, as well as further terms of various sorts that also seemed to merit treatment. Some 10 years later, after much critical support from scholarly colleagues, and much emotional support from my dear wife, I had a manuscript of Words of Wisdom ready to send to the University of Notre Dame Press.

Later he discusses the format of the lexicon:

Each of the 1,173 entries is headed by a term (i.e., a word or phrase), and includes some or all of the following elements: an etymological note; an account of the term’s meaning(s), which, if plural, are given distinct numbers; an example of the term in actual use; a brief discussion of historical or other matters that clarify the term’s meaning; critical remarks in support of or against the pertinent philosophical point; reference to other entries in the dictionary with which this one can usefully be compared and contrasted; and a listing of root-related words whose meanings can be derived from the account given in the entry.

Toward the end of the interview, Carlson speaks about the bibliography of the volume:

Regarding 20th and now 21st century commentaries and developments, let me mention the bibliography at the end of Words of Wisdom, in particular its second part, which University of St. Thomas (Houston) scholar John F.X. Knasas has called “a most representative bibliography of contemporary Thomists.” This section lists nearly 300 titles by 170 different authors. Two who are prominently listed already have been mentioned: Jacques Maritain and Yves R. Simon. Also worthy of special note would be Etienne Gilson, Josef Pieper, Charles DeKoninck, Fr. Joseph Owens, C.Ss.R., Msgr. John F. Whipple, Peter Kreeft, and one of my great teachers, Ralph McInerny; also Dominican scholars such as Benedict Ashley, William A. Wallace, Lawrence Dewan, and Aidan Nichols; and Jesuit scholars such as George P. Klubertanz, Austin Fagothey, W. Norris Clarke, and James V. Schall. Younger scholars who are making significant contributions to the perennial tradition include Steven A. Long, Christopher Kaczor, Matthew Levering, Fr. Kevin Flannery, SJ, and Fr. Thomas Joseph White, OP.

The introduction of the volume is available on the Notre Dame Press website.

How to read an article in Aquinas's Summa theologiae

The following post is a re-post from a blog that I once ran. It’s intended for students rather than scholars. I recently received an email from someone who has no philosophical training and is in a non-academic profession but is trying to make some headway in Aquinas. He stumbled across this old post and said that he found it very helpful. So I thought it might be worth re-posting here. I’ve made a few small changes to the original.

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One of the things that professors always have to bear in mind is that what is obvious to us is not always obvious to our students, especially undergraduates. The Kantian influence on Hegel is obvious to me. The metaphysics of Platonic “participation” is obvious to me (whether it reflects how things really are is, of course, another question). The differences between Descartes and Aristotle are obvious to me. About such things we philosophy professors would probably just shrug our shoulders and say: “Of course.”

But we easily forget that more often than not undergraduates don’t inhabit the same lifeworld. These things are not obvious to them. That’s why they’re taking the class.

Among the obvious things for many philosophy (and theology) professors is how you read an article in Aquinas’s Summa. We don’t find it at all confusing, or, more precisely, we have forgotten what it is like to be a student, when so many things seem so bewildering. We have forgotten that there was a time when Aquinas wasn’t so obvious to us, or at least when his literary styles were not.

With these thoughts in mind, I thought that for the benefit of anyone who is uncertain about how to read an article in the Summa I would post the text of a handout on this topic that I have given to some of my classes (see below). Aquinas uses more or less the same format in other texts such as the De veritate, the De potentia, and his commentary on Peter Lombard’s Sentences. There are other of his texts where the format is quite different, the Compendium theologiae for example.

In the handout I also include a fictional “article” that has to do with Armando Galarraga, the former Detroit Tigers pitcher who lost his bid for a perfect game in the Summer of 2010 when umpire Jim Joyce blew a call. I just wanted to have something very short on the handout as an example and decided to make-up my own article. Since I prepared the handout right after the Galarraga incident, it seemed like a good topic. It’s dumb but it serves the purpose.

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How to Read an Article in Aquinas’s Summa theologiae

I. Basic Parts of an Article

Aquinas’s “articles” in the Summa theologiae and elsewhere usually have the following structure:

1. Question

2. Objections

3. “On the contrary” (Sed contra)

4. “I respond that” (Respondeo)

5. Replies to the Objections

Below is a made-up article to give you an idea:

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Article 1: Did Armando Galarraga get a raw deal?

Objection 1: It would seem that Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga did not get a raw deal when first base umpire Jim Joyce called Jason Donald safe at first and spoiled Galarraga’s bid for a perfect game, for MLB commissioner Bud Selig has argued that human error is a part of baseball.

Objection 2: Further, if anyone got a raw deal it was Jim Joyce because, as Augustine says (De stultitia, II. 3): “It is not he who is misjudged who is despised by the fans but he who misjudges.”

On the contrary, Tigers manager Jim Leyland says: “The players are human, the umpires are human, the managers are human,” which we can take to mean that everyone always gets a raw deal by virtue of being human. Hence, Galarraga got a raw deal because he is a player and all players are human as has been said.

I answer that, “raw deal” can be predicated both of the cause and of the effect. It can be predicated of the cause insofar as the cause is what is said to bring the raw deal about and it can be predicated of the effect insofar as the effect is the recipient of the raw deal. We conclude, then, that as recipient of the raw deal, it is certain that Galarraga got a raw deal.

Reply to Objection 1: While human error may be a part of baseball, this does not prove that Galarraga did not get a raw deal but only that raw deals are a part of baseball.

Reply to Objection 2: There is nothing to prevent he who is misjudged and he who misjudges from both getting raw deals as a result of the misjudgment. Moreover, De stultitia is spuriously attributed to Augustine.

II. Explanation of the Different Parts of the Article

Question

The articles begin with a question about a particular issue. In the above example the question has to do with whether Galarraga was the victim of an injustice.

Objections

Before giving his own answer to the question Aquinas presents the answers that others have given or answers that might be given to the question.

On the Contrary (Sed Contra)

Here Aquinas presents another answer that someone has given or that might be given to the question that is in opposition to the answers given in the Objections.

I Answer That (Respondeo)

Now Aquinas offers his own answer to the question. Quite often, but not always, Aquinas will disagree with the views expressed in the Objections. Also quite often Aquinas seems to be in agreement with the “On the contrary” even if he does not respond explicitly to it. However, he does not always completely agree with the “On the contrary.”

Replies to Objections

Here Aquinas responds directly to each of the answers given in the Objections. Often Aquinas does not directly respond to the answer given in the “On the contrary.” In other works, such as the De veritate, Aquinas will include not just one “On the Contrary” but a whole set of Objections to the Contrary after the first set of Objections. In most cases he responds to all of these Objections to the Contrary too.

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The above explanation is evidently very basic. If you are interested in a more sophisticated explanation, have a look at Otto Bird, “How to Read an Article of the Summa,” The New Scholasticism 27 (1953): 129-159.

By the way, you may have noticed in my made-up article I mention Augustine’s De stultitia in Objection 2. This also is made-up. As far as I know, Augustine never wrote anything by that title. Also, as far as I know, Augustine never said: “It is not he who is misjudged who is despised by the fans but he who misjudges.” I add this disclaimer only so as not to upset any Augustine scholars.

Does Thomism Offer a Theory of Doctrinal Development?

St. Thomas Aquinas and his followers are not normally associated with the theology of doctrinal development. Nevertheless, in his presentation of the faith-reason relationship and his treatment of the theological virtue of faith, Aquinas does forward an explicit and nuanced theology of doctrinal development. In the context of the relationship between faith and reason, Aquinas connects the natural knowability of God with truths formally revealed in faith, treating the latter as developments of the former, and thus establishing an organic continuity between truths known by reason and the articles of faith. In relation to the virtue of faith, St. Thomas presents a very robust understanding of the connection between the articles of faith and God as the object of faith’s assent.

A helpful and insightful treatment of doctrinal development according to Aquinas can be found in the book What is Dogma? by noted Swiss thomist, Charles Cardinal Journet. Journet’s What is Dogma? has recently been reprinted; it’s worth the read, especially for those interested in Aquinas’ theory of doctrinal development. 

An English translation of Aquinas's Scriptum on the Sentences?

Via David Whidden, some links to fascinating news about a translation company that is working towards a facing page, Latin-English translation of Thomas’s Scriptum on Peter’s Lombards Libri sententiarum. For the background to the story you can visit the Washington Times article “From Bill Gates to Thomas Aquinas” and then go to the profiled company’s page (Logos Software) devoted to the translation project (link).

It seems that the company is looking for pledged support for the project, so if you have influence in your school’s library budgets this might be the time to get the word in—especially as people try to flush out expenditures before the end of the fiscal year on June 30.

On Critical Editions

It has become commonplace for scholars to insist upon use only of the critical editions of manuscripts.  It is interesting, however, that in many cases these editions are not properly available to all those who need them; and, likewise, that no essential difference on pertinent speculative points may obtain between the critical edition and some earlier edition.  Accordingly, the question that must be raised at some juncture is why the speculative pursuit of inquiry should be impeded by being restricted to less available works when these do not vary in any essential facet from some earlier edition in terms of the particular speculative issue concerned. Certainly it would be ideal were the Leonine editions made available in the manner in which the University of Navarre has made Thomas’s work available on its Corpus Thomisticum site.  But in the absence of this, and where no significant textual difference affects the speculative issue pursued, there is no speculative basis for frowning on the use of earlier editions. A scholar should track the relation of the editions—if there is a significant difference with respect to the matter under examination, the edition judged to be better with respect to that matter should be used—but where there is no essential discrepancy, or only the most minor discrepancy, what matters is the authenticity and adequacy of the pertinent passages and not a wider comparison of editions.  It is one thing to prefer an edition.  It is another to suppose that for this reason correct texts in earlier editions cannot legitimately be cited; or to suppose that editions less available to students should be given universal preference over earlier editions even when these earlier editions do not vary significantly from the later edition and are more accessible.  Given that the Leonine Commission was given the task of making Thomas’s work accessible, the insistence on using a less accessible edition even where this is not mission-critical is ironic.  St. Dominic famously insisted that “grain that is horded, rots”.  It is past time for the Leonine Commission to make the entire critical edition of Thomas’s work available online to the world.  The original purpose of the Leonine Commission could not be better served.  And hard copies will always still be desired by libraries (as well as by individuals!).

Long on Analogy

Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews published my review of Steven Long’s Analogia Entis:  http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/30849-analogia-entis-on-the-analogy-of-being-metaphysics-and-the-act-of-faith/.  I was thinking that people interested in the Cajetanian account might also profitably read James F. Anderson’s Bond of Being and especially Yves Simon’s “Order in Analogical Sets,” which is in Philosopher at Work.  Simon’s article is basically a paraphrase of or light commentary on Cajetan.

Grabmann Online

Several of Martin Grabmann’s works are available in digitized form via the Internet Archive including the English translation of his classic Thomas Aquinas: His Personality and Thought.

Here are the German texts that are available through the Internet Archive:

Die Lehre des Heiligen Thomas von Aquin von der Kirche als Gotteswerk: ihre Stellung im thomistischen System und in der Geschichte der mittelalterlichen Theologie

Der Gegenwartswert der geschichtlichen Erforschung der mittelalterlichen Philosophie: akademische Antrittsvorlesung

Die Geschichte der scholastischen Methode, Bd. 1*

Die philosophische und theologische Erkenntnislehre des Kardinals Matthaeus von Aquasparta: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Verhältnisses zwischen Augustinismus und Aristotelismus im mittelalterlichen Denken

Einführung in die Summa theologiae des heiligen Thomas von Aquin

Forschungen über die lateinischen Aristoteles-Übersetzungen des XIII. Jahrhunderts

Neu aufgefundene lateinische Werke deutscher Mystiker

Studien zu Johannes Quidort von Paris, O. Pr.

Drei ungedruckte Teile der Summa de creaturis Alberts des Grossen

Unfortunately only the first volume of Grabmann’s history of the scholastic method is available. This volume covers the patristic period to the beginning of the 12th century. I cannot locate a digitized version of the second volume online, which covers the 12th century to the beginning of the 13th. Perhaps one of our readers could help us out here.

If you are looking for Thomas von Aquin, Personlichkeit und Gedankenwelt, the original German text of Thomas Aquinas: His Personality and Thought, you will not find it at the Internet Archive. You will not find it on Google Books either. But it is available here at the Hathi Trust Digital Library. While you can read and search the text online, you cannot download a PDF of the complete version unless you belong to a college or university that is a partner of the Hathi Trust Digital Library.

International Thomistic Philosophy Conference in Chile

This July 4-6 the Universidad Santo Tomás in Santiago, Chile is hosting the “1st International Congress on Thomistic Philosophy,” which is taking as its topic: “The Person: Divine, Angelic, Human.” The gathering will be held at the university’s main campus in Santiago.

Here is the list of invited speakers:

Eleonore Stump, University of Saint Louis

Eudaldo Forment, Universitat de Barcelona

Lluis Clavell, President of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas

Tomás Melendo, Universidad de Málaga

Enrique Alarcón, Universidad de Navarra

John Knasas, University of Saint Thomas (Houston)

Antonio Amado, Universidad de los Andes

Juan Antonio Widow, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez

Félix Adolfo Lamas, Universidad Católica Argentina

Fernando Moreno, Universidad Gabriela Mistral

Vincenzo Benetollo, O.P., President of the Società Internazionale Tommaso d’Aquino (SITA)

The deadline for proposals for contributions is May 31. They can be sent to cet@santotomas.cl.

You can find out more information about the congress — in Spanish, Italian, and English — online at the congress’s webpage.

Dissertation on Analogy

Congratulations to the Center for Thomistic Studies’ most recent PhD, my student Domenic D’Ettore.  His dissertation is “Early Thomists on Demonstration with Analogous Terms.”  For more info, click here.