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An Introduction to Catholic Theology

7/29/2020

In Catholic Theology, a book published in 2017, Australian Theologian Tracey Rowland, a leading figure in contemporary Thomism and a member of the International Theological Commission since 2014, offers us a presentation of four essential Catholic approaches to doing theology which have determined the evolution and have been at the heart of the reflexive endeavour of the Catholic Church since, broadly speaking, the publication of Pope Leo XIII’s Encyclical, Aeterni Patris (1879).

The book is presented as an introduction to Catholic theology for students, and as a useful mapping of the major paths that theological reflection has taken since the end of the 19th century. But its remarkable richness of content also makes it a tool for all seasoned theologians who wish to refresh their knowledge of the history of contemporary Catholic thought. In going straight to the heart of the matter each time, the book allows us to understand the intellectual solidarities and oppositions that have shaped this history and that have influenced the course of events in the Church up to the time of the present pontificate.

Anyone who sets out to read T. Rowland's book is given a real introduction to theology, but it is an introduction of a specific kind. It is not a systematic exposition of the boundaries and foundations of theology, of the nature and purpose of the theological discipline, of its classical subdivisions, fundamental problems and methodological issues. Choosing a half-thematic half-historical approach structured around the major theoretical positions assumed by the great figures of theology on a certain number of essential problems, positions which together have given birth and consistency to the four theological currents analyzed, the author presents the fundamentals of each approach. We discover them not only in themselves, but as they have been defined in the course of theoretical confrontations, and according to the major epistemological and/or generational cleavages that have emerged, as ideological conflicts and profound cultural changes have brought new issues to the fore, thus inviting theologians to rethink the mission of the Church and their own role as intellectual leaders in Peter's bark.

After a brief presentation, in the first chapter, of the great principles and problems structuring Catholic theological thought from its origins (e.g. the Christian mystery cannot be reduced to a theological system; the unity of the theological vision must be maintained in spite of all the conceptual distinctions required by discursive thought; grace must be thought of in its articulation with nature; faith in its articulation with reason, etc.), we discover theology, chapter after chapter, through the concerns, commitments and battles of particular theological schools, thus familiarizing ourselves with the intellectual sensitivity of each one, the metaphysical references that each one draws upon, and the perspectives that they open on the future of Christianity.

Chapter II presents several types of contemporary thomistic approaches to theology ("Strict Observance Thomism" à la Garrigou-Lagrange, Gilson's existential Thomism, Rahner's transcendental Thomism, Lublin's Thomism (to which John Paul II is attached), Toulouse's Thomism, etc.). Chapter III recalls the battles fought by the great thinkers of the "Nouvelle Théologie" (de Lubac, Balthasar, Ratzinger), then the defence and illustration of their theses by and in the Communio journal, founded in 1972 (German and Italian editions). Chapter IV outlines the main reformist aims of the Critical Theology current, as it has been embodied since 1965 in the journal Concilium and in the theologically questionable works of Karl Rahner, Edward Schillebeeckx and Jean-Baptiste Metz. Chapter V describes the anti-hierarchical and subversive dynamics at work in Liberation Theology and concludes with an examination of the positions of Pope Francis, shaped by a particular type of Liberation Theology, People's Theology.

The work thus introduces us to the major positions of the major currents of Catholic theology, based on the major contributions of the major theological figures of Catholicism. Throughout the chapters, we see new theological sensitivities emerging, often in reaction to those that preceded them. Rowland's presentation also allows us to identify when and understand how we went from one theological era to another because of a particular paradigm shift. Moreover, she has highlighted the affinities, influences and filiations that have contributed to the rooting and perpetuation over time of these traditions of thought. In short, it is to a lived theology, which hides nothing of its existential significance, that Tracey Rowland skillfully presents us. The result is quite simply masterful. The Australian theologian deserves all our gratitude.

Clearly, Rowland's book is not for everybody. It is for people who have a real interest in theology, i.e. who like to grapple with tough theoretical questions like the place of philosophy in theology, the primacy of logos over ethos, the conflict between different branches of Thomism, etc. It is therefore obvious that one must have at least a basic knowledge of theology before trying to read Catholic Theology. The minimum would be to have read the Catechism of the Catholic Church and to be familiar with its content. And even then, one will face a real challenge in reading Rowland sometimes.

But even when one doesn't understand all at once, one learns a lot and draws a lot out of what the author exposes. Especially in terms of how to quickly identify theological positions and affiliations in books and speeches. Thanks to it, we learn about Garrigou-Lagrange or Rahner or Ratzinger or Bergoglio's main theological influences and stands. About the impact of theological currents on the life of the Church before and after Vatican II. About the confrontation between currents that are trying to "modernize" the Church, while others are more concerned with trying to keep a living connection with our Tradition, etc. It truly is an amazing book.

(Revised and updated on 08-24-2020 at 1:32 pm)

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The Presocratic’s Contribution to Natural Theology According to Edward Feser

7/27/2020

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While I was preparing a new series of blogs on "contemporary approaches to theology" based on a book by Australian theologian Tracey Rowland, I came across a 2008 blog post written by an American philosopher, Edward Feser, who defines himself as a Thomist (i.e. a disciple of St. Thomas Aquinas in the philosophical and/or theological fields). Feser's article, entitled "Pre-Socratic natural theology", begins with an account of how his personal interest in philosophy was sparked by a course in Greek literature, where he discovered the philosophical and scientific approach of "Thales, Heraclitus, Parmenides". Then Feser continues with what is generally said and widely known about the Presocratics :

It is a commonplace, says Feser, that the defining characteristics of Western philosophy and science can be found in embryo in the Pre-Socratics. Thales and other Ionian monists give us the first attempts to reduce all the diverse phenomena of nature to a single material principle, and their methods (so far as we can determine on the basis of usually scanty evidence) seem to have been largely empirical. Pythagoras and his followers inaugurate the emphasis on mathematical structure as the key to unlocking nature’s secrets. In Parmenides and Zeno we see the first attempts to provide rigorous demonstrations of far-reaching metaphysical theses. The distinction between appearance and reality, the tension between rationalist and empiricist tendencies of thought, and the rational analysis and critique of received ideas are all evident throughout the Pre-Socratic period.

So as everybody in the discipline, Feser acknowledges the fact that Presocratic philosophers are nothing less than the founding fathers of both Western philosophy and science. The fruits of their efforts were so amazing, he states, that “it might not be too much of a stretch to say that at least the seeds of what was to come [in the philosophical field] during the next two and a half millennia can all be found in their work.”

Where Feser’s article gets very interesting is where he asserts that “What is perhaps less widely remarked upon is the extent to which the Pre-Socratics set the stage for the later development of natural theology.” Indeed, as we saw in a previous blog post, the idea that underlies the whole history of philosophy as taught in our universities today is that Presocratic thought was a turning point in human history that marked the beginning of the end of the domination of religious thought over Western culture. In other words, Presocratic philosophers are considered, by current generations of atheist philosophers, proto-atheists who initiated the great process of Western secularization. The important point raised by Feser concerning the impact of Presocratic thought on religious mentality is of the utmost importance, for he does not deny the devastating impact of nascent philosophy on mythology, but makes it clear that what the Presocratic philosophers were seeking was not "less religion" or "no religion at all", but a better religion:

to be sure, says Feser, that Xenophanes criticized the anthropomorphism of Greek polytheism and that Anaxagoras got into trouble for characterizing the sun as a hot stone rather than a god are widely regarded as great advances in human thought. But the usual reason they are so regarded seems to be because these moves are considered steps along the way to a completely atheistic, or at least non-theistic, account of the world. That Xenophanes wanted to replace polytheism, not with atheism, but with monotheism, and that Anaxagoras regarded Mind as necessary to an explanation of the world, are often considered less significant – as if these ideas were not as essential to their thought as the skeptical elements, and as if these thinkers, and the Pre-Socratics generally, lacked the courage of their convictions, and could not bring themselves completely to let go of superstition.

To make this point clearer, Mr. Feser continues:

what the Pre-Socratic thinkers (or some of them, anyway) saw is that in the light of reason, “folk physics” – our crude, commonsense understanding of the workings of the physical world – ought to give way, not to no physics at all, but rather to scientific physics. Similarly, “folk theology” – the crude anthropomorphisms of polytheism and superstition – ought to give way, not to no theology at all, but rather to rational theology, to what has since come to be known as natural theology.

Then, against the failure to understand theism displayed by the "new atheists", Feser reaffirms the most important truth about natural theology, that is to say, that it leads to a rational knowledge of God that is certainly limited, but reliable:

The classical tradition in natural theology [...] holds that the existence of the God of traditional theism is necessary, and rationally unavoidable, given the existence of any causation at all in the world, even of the most simple sort. And as Gerson [a scholar teaching at the University of Toronto] shows, it is evident from what we know of at least some of the Pre-Socratics that they had more than an inkling of this. That is to say, they saw (or some of them did) that it is theism rather than atheism that is the logical outcome of a rationalist approach to the world.

I am not going to quote the whole article, but I would like to underline, with a final quote from Feser, how the Presocratic philosophers contributed to the development of natural theology. Listing some of the ideas forged by the Presocratics (ideas that Christians would incorporate in their reflection on the mystery of God), Feser writes:

In the work of the Pre-Socratics we find precursors of some of the key elements of the classical theism of Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas. In Anaximander’s notion of the apeiron or “unbounded” we have an anticipation of the insight that that which ultimately explains the diverse phenomena of the world cannot itself be characterized in terms that apply to that world (or at least not univocally, as the Thomist would add). From Parmenides we get the principle that ex nihilo nihil fit (out of nothing comes nothing), which foreshadows the Scholastics’ “principle of causality” and the argument to the First Cause that rests on it. We derive from him too the discovery that ultimate reality must be Being Itself rather than a being among other beings, unchanging and unchangeable, and necessarily one rather than many. In Anaxagoras we find the realization that the cause of things must be a Mind rather than an impersonal absolute. It would take the work of later thinkers – Plato to some extent, Aristotle to a great extent, and the Scholastics to a greater extent still, culminating in Thomas Aquinas and the Thomistic tradition deriving from him – to work these insights out in a thorough and systematic way. But as with Western science and philosophy more generally, the seeds are there already in the Pre-Socratics; in particular, they made the decisive break with anthropomorphism in thinking about God.

If you want to read Feser’s article, it’s right here.

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Why Is Philosophy an Important Part of Catholic Formation According to Pope Leo XIII?

7/10/2020

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In 1879, very early in his pontificate, Leon XIII wrote Aeterni Patris, an encyclical letter entirely devoted to the theme of philosophical formation. In the very first pages of his letter officially entitled On The Restoration of Christian Philosophy, he gives eight reasons why it is important for Catholics to learn philosophy and to engage in philosophical debates.

Before presenting the first of these reasons, it is perhaps appropriate to recall that Europe, at the time of the papacy of Leo, was in the midst of great political and ideological turmoil, due to the continuous spread of modern and liberal ideas which challenged the political and cultural order of the traditional West, based on the monarchical tradition and the Christian religion. Most worrying for the Church was the spread of philosophical misconceptions, which accelerated the process of secularization among the various national elites, but also at the grassroots level, among the growing working class.

In order to meet the political challenge of democracy, which was still a novelty at that time in Europe, Leo XIII was to write an encyclical letter in 1892 inviting the Catholics of France who were viscerally opposed to the republican order to embrace and evangelize at the same time the new regime, established some fifteen years ago. To address the problem of economic injustice and poverty, Leo XIII published in 1991 Rerum Novarum, an innovative work that would become the cornerstone of what we today call the social doctrine of the Church.

What is very revealing is that Leo XIII decided to tackle the problem of intellectual corruption by modern ideologies from the very beginning of his pontificate, a clear sign that he was aware of what was at stake: the very understanding of the Truth by Catholics, from which behaviour and practice obviously derive. In the following passage we see how critical Leo saw the cultural situation of society, and how aware he was that the remedy for such a critical problem lay, not entirely, but partly in the "restoration of Christian philosophy":

"Whoso turns his attention to the bitter strifes of these days and seeks a reason for the troubles that vex public and private life must come to the conclusion that a fruitful cause of the evils which now afflict, as well as those which threaten, us lies in this: that false conclusions concerning divine and human things, which originated in the schools of philosophy, have now crept into all the orders of the State, and have been accepted by the common consent of the masses. For, since it is in the very nature of man to follow the guide of reason in his actions, if his intellect sins at all his will soon follows; and thus it happens that false opinions, whose seat is in the understanding, influence human actions and pervert them. Whereas, on the other hand, if men be of sound mind and take their stand on true and solid principles, there will result a vast amount of benefits for the public and private good."

Leo was aware that evangelization is the first answer to the spiritual decline of the West, but he was also convinced that philosophy was to play a great role in this endeavour of evangelizing the modern world. Here’s was he says about it:

"We do not, indeed, attribute such force and authority to philosophy as to esteem it equal to the task of combating and rooting out all errors; for, when the Christian religion was first constituted, it came upon earth to restore it to its primeval dignity by the admirable light of faith, diffused "not by persuasive words of human wisdom, but in the manifestation of spirit and of power", so also at the present time we look above all things to the powerful help of Almighty God to bring back to a right understanding the minds of man and dispel the darkness of error. But the natural helps with which the grace of the divine wisdom, strongly and sweetly disposing all things, has supplied the human race are neither to be despised nor neglected, chief among which is evidently the right use of philosophy. For, not in vain did God set the light of reason in the human mind; and so far is the super-added light of faith from extinguishing or lessening the power of the intelligence that it completes it rather, and by adding to its strength renders it capable of greater things."

Here Pope Leo reaffirms the traditional doctrine of the Church on the complementarity of faith and reason. In the "win-win" relationship between faith and reason, reason clearly benefits from the divine wisdom received from above through grace, a supernatural gift of absolute necessity if "greater things" are to be achieved. But faith also benefits from the help of reason, which is, as Leo XIII has just reminded us in the preceding quotation, a gift of God's Providence. And from this very fact, the Pope draws the following conclusion:

"Therefore, Divine Providence itself requires that, in calling back the people to the paths of faith and salvation, advantage should be taken of human science also [which includes philosophy] - an approved and wise practice which history testifies was observed by the most illustrious Fathers of the Church. They, indeed, were wont neither to belittle nor undervalue the part that reason had to play, as is summed up by the great Augustine when he attributes to this science "that by which the most wholesome faith is begotten ...is nourished, defended, and made strong."

The first reason why philosophy matters for Catholicism, thus, is this: it prepares the mind, the soul and the heart to welcome the Revelation of God. Here’s Pope Leo again:

"In the first place, philosophy, if rightly made use of by the wise, in a certain way tends to smooth and fortify the road to true faith, and to prepare the souls of its disciples for the fit reception of revelation; for which reason it is well called by ancient writers sometimes a stepping stone to the Christian faith, sometimes the prelude and help of Christianity, sometimes the Gospel teacher."

How exactly does philosophy prepare the way for Revelation? By leading to some crucial truths that God has personally revealed to us throughout the history of salvation, but which reason has also been able to conquer by itself in the course of the development of philosophical thought, thus confirming the truthfulness of Revelation.

“It is most fitting, says the Pope, to turn these truths, which have been discovered by the pagan sages even, to the use and purposes of revealed doctrine, in order to show that both human wisdom and the very testimony of our adversaries serve to support the Christian faith-a method which is not of recent introduction, but of established use, and has often been adopted by the holy Fathers of the Church."

We should care about the testimony of reason, asserts Pope Leo, because it confirms and strengthen the testimony of faith, and therefore it is a strong incentive to enter into the supernatural experience of encountering God, listening to His Word and obeying Him in Faith.

“...who does not see that a plain and easy road is opened up to faith by such a method of philosophic study?” asks Pope Leo at the end of paragraph 4 of Aeterni Patris.

This capacity of reason to corroborate the revealed truths received in faith is the first of the eight reasons why philosophical formation is important for Catholics, according to Leo XIII. If you want to know what are the seven other reasons, I invite you to read numbers 5 to 7 of the encyclical.

(revised and corrected on 07-21-2020)

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An Introduction to Catholic Theology

The Presocratic’s Contribution to Natural Theology According to Edward Feser

Why Is Philosophy an Important Part of Catholic Formation According to Pope Leo XIII?

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