On the resurgence of Teilhard de Chardin

If there ever was a theology very much in vogue and appealing to hipsters, "new-agers", the young and the fashionable, it was that of Teilhard de Chardin -- whose theological vision served as aesthetic inspiration for jazz, folk folk and classical albums; the basis for a science fiction novels, and also a chief influence on Salvador Dali's artistic incorporation of religious iconography. Recently, Teilhard's name popped up in popular discussions of eugenics, transhumanism and artificial intelligence, with the philosopher Eric Steindhart praising Teilhard as "one of the first to articulate transhumanist themes".

The mystical theology of Teilhard de Chardin has been alluded to time and again in the works of recent popes -- implicitly by Pope Saint John Paul II, in his encyclical Ecclesia Eucharistica: "the Eucharist is always in some way celebrated on the altar of the world. It unites heaven and earth. It embraces and permeates all creation". Chardin exercised an influence on Ratzinger/Benedict XVI as well, who referenced him numerous times in his book Spirit of the Liturgy as well as his speeches and homilies.

Thus it comes as little surprise that we find Pope Francis -- especially with his (pre)occupation with ecology -- carrying the Teilhardian banner, or that under his pontificate the Pontifical Council of Culture would request the repeal of the Holy Office's 1962 Monitum (warning) -- or even that a petition was recently circulated to declare Teilhard de Chardin a "Doctor of the Church."

Nor is it suprising that with every instance of a papal quotation, his supporters seem to reassert themselves, rushing to zealously proclaim on social media that he is being "REHABILITATED" in their desire to exonerate a polarizing theologian whose work, arguably, should still and nonetheless be approached with no small amount of caution.

Teilhard's defenders include the esteemed Henri de Lubac, who remarked "We need not concern ourselves with a number of detractors of Teilhard, in whom emotion has blunted intelligence." and Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, who naively mused that "it is very likely that within fifty years all the trivial, verbal disputes about the meaning of Teilhard's "unfortunate" vocabulary will have died away, Teilhard will appear like John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila, as the spiritual genius of the twentieth century."

On the other hand, those De Lubac ridiculed with "blunted intelligence" include the likes of Etienne Gilson, Jacques Maritain, Cardinal de Journet, and Dietrich von Hildebrand -- all of whom in my humble opinion, were justifiably hesitant and properly cautious over the philosophical implications of Teilhard's theology, when carried to its ultimate conclusions.

* * *

Via the web, here's a compilation of related material as I dig a little deeper into said debate:

The Monitum on Teilhard de Chardin

• Monitum on the Writings of Fr. Teilhard de Chardin, SJ Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office. 06/30/62.
• Letter to [Pope Francis] to waive the Monitum on Teilhard's Works". Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Council for Culture. 11/17/17.
• PETITION: Declare Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J., a Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church. Daryl Domning.

Teilhard de Chardin - Rehabilitated?

• Is Teilhard de Chardin being rehabilitated? And who is that, anyway?, by Luke Coppen. The Pillar 09/04/23.

• Pope cites Teilhardian vision of the cosmos as a 'living host', by John Allen Jr. National Catholic Reporter 07/28/09. Allen observes that regarding Teilhard "Benedict has sometimes seemed to be of two minds himself," at times agreeing with his cosmic vision, but also "complained that Gaudium et Spes [...] played down the reality of sin because of an overly 'French,' and specifically 'Teilhardian,' influence."

• When a Jesuit Evolutionist and a Religious Existentialist Cross Paths; (Or) Why Won't the New Humanity Emerge Already?, J. Scott Jackson. DET (Die Evangelischen Theologen) 06/23/16. On the debate bretween Teilhard de Chardin and the Catholic existentialist philosopher Gabriel Marcel. See also: The Marcel-Teilhard Debate Michael J. Latzer. New Blackfriars Vol. 82, No. 961 (March 2001), pp. 132-137.

Commentary on Teilhard de Chardin and his critics by Peter Kwasniewski.

• Teilhard’s Pseudo-Scientific Inversion of Christianity: Five Recent Writers. Tradition & Sanity 09/21/23. "Two Jesuits, two metaphysicians, and a Franciscan friar deconstructing the would-be cosmologist of a new faith."
• Gilson, Maritain, Tresmontant, Journet, and von Hildebrand on Teilhard de Chardin. Tradition & Sanity 09/14/23 "You wouldn’t necessarily know it from Vatican News, but Chardin was roundly criticized by fellow Catholic intellectuals."
• Teilhard de Chardin: A Key to Understanding Our Jesuit Pope. Tradition & Sanity 09/07/23. "Francis has proved an admirable disciple of his modernist forerunner."

A prominent critic of Teilhard de Chardin online is Dr. John P. Slattery, Director of the Carl G. Grefenstette Center for Ethics in Science, Technology, and Law at Duquesne University.

• PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN’S LEGACY OF EUGENICS AND RACISM CAN’T BE IGNORED Religion Dispatches 05/21/18.
• Dangerous Tendencies of Cosmic Theology: The Untold Legacy of Teilhard de Chardin by John P. Slattery. Philosophy and Theology Vol. 29: No. 1. pp. 69-82, according to whom "from the 1920s until his death in 1955, Teilhard de Chardin unequivocally supported racist eugenic practices, praised the possibilities of the Nazi experiments, and looked down upon those who he deemed 'imperfect' humans."
• Teilhard de Chardin, racism and eugenics: An exchange - John P. Slattery | Juan V. Fernández de la Gala. America 08/09/23.
• Trashing Teilhard: How Not to Read a Great Religious Thinker, by John F. Haught. America 02/12/19. In which Haut responds to Slattery's article in Philosophy & Theology.
• Teilhard & Eugenics: A Response to John Haught Commonweal 03/12/19, in which Slattery concludes:

  ... it is hard to deny that Teilhard’s clear and consistent support of eugenics-related philosophies can be tied to core principles of his mature thought, especially his arguments combining physical and spiritual evolutionary development.

  I do think there is a way forward for Teilhardian research, in addition to further investigation of his ties to eugenics. I would welcome a renewed focus on Teilhard’s early mystical writings. But his support of eugenics and the related doctrine of human inequality force us to reject or readjust some interpretations of his ideas. It would be irresponsible to ignore even a tangential connection between Teilhard’s arguments and eugenics, especially at a time when CRISPR technology and widespread DNA sequencing have revived eugenics-related conversations.

  Christian theology demands, in its beautiful paradox, that we find holiness not in the strength but in the suffering of the world, and that the path to God is found by prioritizing the broken, the poor, the outcast, the marginalized, and the oppressed. I firmly believe there is a place for Teilhard in the Christian theological tradition, but there is absolutely no room for eugenics.

It can happen that an individual posseses that objective holiness of mission and authority and yet has no subjective holiness. This is a grave misfortune, dangerously obscuring the Church's mission. But the Church as a whole can never fail to possess both gifts at the same time. This equally applies to the Church in its visible aspect. Consequently it will not do to divide the Catholic Church into two churches, an emperical Church with her authority, and her ascertainable membership, and an invisible Church of the saints, whose number is known only to God.

Augustine saw very clearly that the visible bearer of the power of the keys cannot receive a sinner back into the Communio Sanctorum; without he forgiveness (together with God) of the Church and the saints, which the Song of Songs calls the "one dove." But he does not draw the same conclusion as that Augustinian friar, Luther, namely, that only the Church of the saints with its "priesthood of all believers" has the true power of the keys. In Augustine the tension persists: Christ's Church has objective and subjective holiness, but they coincide, perfectly only in Christ, the Church's head.

- Hans Urs von Balthasar, In the Fullness of Faith: On the Centrality of the Distinctively Catholic.

Samuel Gregg: "Reason, Faith, and the Struggle for Western Civilization"

Reason, Faith, and the Struggle for Western Civilization
by Samuel Gregg.
Gateway Editions (June 25, 2019). 256 pgs.

The genius of Western civilization is its unique synthesis of reason and faith. But today that synthesis is under attack—from the East by radical Islam (faith without reason) and from within the West itself by aggressive secularism (reason without faith). The stakes are incalculably high.

The naïve and increasingly common assumption that reason and faith are incompatible is simply at odds with the facts of history. The revelation in the Hebrew Scriptures of a reasonable Creator imbued Judaism and Christianity with a conviction that the world is intelligible, leading to the flowering of reason and the invention of science in the West. It was no accident that the Enlightenment took place in the culture formed by the Jewish and Christian faiths.

We can all see that faith without reason is benighted at best, fanatical and violent at worst. But too many forget that reason, stripped of faith, is subject to its own pathologies. A supposedly autonomous reason easily sinks into fanaticism, stifling dissent as bigoted and irrational and devouring the humane civilization fostered by the integration of reason and faith. The blood-soaked history of the twentieth century attests to the totalitarian forces unleashed by corrupted reason.

But Samuel Gregg does more than lament the intellectual and spiritual ruin caused by the divorce of reason and faith. He shows that each of these foundational principles corrects the other’s excesses and enhances our comprehension of the truth in a continuous renewal of civilization. By recovering this balance, we can avoid a suicidal winner-take-all conflict between reason and faith and a future that will respect neither.

Reviews and Discussion

• Review by Reviewed by Rev. Ben Johnson. TransAtlantic Blog Acton Institute. 8/16/19.
• All Is Not Lost: Reason, Faith, & Western Civilization, by Fr. Dwight Longenecker. The Imaginative Conservative 07/30/19:

  Samuel Gregg is to be congratulated for writing a concise, accessible, and clear explanation of our present situation. His book is uncluttered with intellectual jargon, academic posturing, and obscure argumentation. It’s the kind of book that should be required reading for any liberal arts college student because it gives the historical background that explains where we are today and why. This sort of book provides the context and matrix for current trends in philosophy, politics, economics, the arts, media, religion, and popular culture.

• Reason, faith, and the pursuit of wisdom, by Phil Lawler. Catholic Culture 08/09/19.
• The Logos of Western Civilization: A Conversation with Sam Gregg (Podcast). Law and Liberty 08/16/19.
• Samuel Gregg: Discussion w/ John J. Miller National Review 07/08/19.
• The Struggle for Western Civilization – Conversations with Mark Bauerlein Ricochet

Here and There

• Five Insights Christianity Brings to Politics, by Michael Matheson Miller. Law and Liberty 05/29/19:

  The relationship between Christianity and politics is a complex one. The Church has played a mixed role in the history of political liberty to be sure. At times it has suppressed political, religious and economic liberty. Yet despite that, and unserious caricatures of history from secularists like Steven Pinker, Christianity has been one of the most important forces for liberty and the idea of a limited state. Though Christianity is not a political program it nevertheless gives us a certain way of thinking about the state and the role of politics. ...

  

• Remembering an Aristotelian Radical: Henry Veatch and Rational Man, by Douglas B. Rasmussen, Douglas J. Den Uyl. Law and Liberty 09/09/18:

  Veatch often remarked that there is a difference between having what it takes to live well and living well. Though he certainly would not dismiss empirical studies of human flourishing that attempt to measure the development of the capabilities people need for flourishing, he would rightly insist on a difference between the development of people’s capabilities and the exercise of their own practical wisdom. It is the deployment of the latter that is central to what constitutes one’s flourishing.

  In sum, we can say that Veatch has offered in Rational Man and his other works a way of understanding ethics that celebrates both the individual and the importance of the self-perfecting life. This celebration is based on his thorough-going realism -- a realism that rejects the temptation to make reality simply a human construction but also a realism that holds that human knowing, achievement, and flourishing are possible, if we will but exercise those virtues that make us rational animals.

• Edward Feser notes the passing of philosopher and theologian Norman Geisler (1932-2019):

  I am sorry to report that philosopher and theologian Norman Geisler has died. Geisler stood out as a Protestant who took a broadly Thomist approach to philosophy and theology, and as an evangelical who vigorously defended the classical theist conception of God against the currently fashionable anthropomorphism he aptly labeled “neo-theism” (and which Brian Davies calls “theistic personalism”). Those of us who sympathize with these commitments are in his debt.

• Widening Gyres, by Brian Kemple. The Agonist. While I admit sites like Quillette remain guilty pleasures (inasmuch as they advance a free and reasonable exchange of ideas in the face of fideistic oppression) there is something lacking in the greater scheme of things, and Brian Kemple nails it in this essay:

  Yet despite their adoration of reason, these “Reasonabilists” are in truth no more than “reasonablish,” I say somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Clearly, they are not so unreasonable as the raving social justice ideologues they rightly lambast, nor are they lost in the clouds of Gnosticism and mystical superstition that they readily attribute to pre-modern thought.[12] But the fact that they cling adamantly to this caricature of pre-modern beliefs reveals the limits of their reason. A critical examination of the true contours of pre-modern society would show it to be no less and, in some instances, a great deal more reasonable than the thinking that came to prevail through the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, and perhaps therefore induce reflection upon the modernist principles which they have uncritically taken for granted. [...]

  Indeed, ignorance of history is not only a hallmark of the Enlightenment and its contemporary advocates, but a deliberately cultivated shortcoming. Rather than engage with the whole system of scholasticism, men such as Descartes, Cudworth, More, and Leibniz extracted points for criticism that, once deprived of context, appear absurd. Likewise, Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau emphasized an interpretation of history and society whose preoccupation with practical economics, technology, and politics relied on a caricature of the intellectual heritage of the Middle Ages. They thereby skipped over many details of life proper to the period, when the questions of philosophy were intertwined with the life of faith. The closeness of the Christian religion to philosophy shows how integral Christendom was to European culture, especially in the embrace and promotion of classical learning.[31] Truly, having the Enlightenment and its heirs as the only source of learning for understanding the Middle Ages would be like having Aristophanes as the only source for understanding Socrates.

• Anselm's Account of Satisfaction Siris 04/14/19:

  There has been some discussion recently of this interview with Elizabeth Johnson; it was actually done late last year, but has been getting more attention now, since 'tis the season. Much of the interview is more a matter of provocative phrasing than substantially wrong claims, but some of it goes very awry. And pretty much all of the discussion of Anselm on satisfaction in Cur Deus Homo, is wrong. It's wrong in entirely avoidable ways; but, I find, ways that are often not avoided, so it is worthwhile to say a few things about them. ...

• The Last Modernist: The Legacy of Jacques Barzun, by David Warren. The Imaginative Conservative 04/04/19:

  Barzun was “civil” as well as civilized, yet never pusillanimous. A large part of his work consisted of serenely articulated anger, focused chiefly upon the teaching profession. The phenomenon that is glibly called today “political correctness” — a far stronger term is needed to convey the stench of it — has been a feature of North American intellectual life for a long time. It is in fact the contemporary expression of the Puritan theological outlook, that landed with the Mayflower; and it has everything to do with cults of specialization, and with heresies (i.e. deceitful half-truths) both within and beyond the formal perimeter of religion.

• Legutko: Enemy Of The Politruks, by Rod Dreher. The American Conservative 04/23/19. An interview with scholar and statesman Ryszard Legutko, whom in April 2019, after traveling to Vermont from Poland, was abruptly disinvited from a speaking engagement at Middlebury College after its administration decided that it could not guarantee his safety:

  [Rod Dreher] It seems to me that the way you were treated at Middlebury vindicates much of The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies. If so, please explain how.

  The book is about how liberal democracy tends to develop the qualities that were characteristic of communism: pervasive politicization, ideological zeal, aggressive social engineering, vulgarity, a belief in inevitability of progress, destruction of family, the omnipresent rule of ideological correctness, severe restriction of intellectual inquiry, etc. All of these I remember from my young days in communism, and all these I have been observing, with a growing sense of alarm, in today’s liberal democracy. In the heyday of the communist rule it was customary that the communist students disrupted the lectures of old “bourgeois” professors, accusing them of having reactionary views, of trying to corrupt the young minds with idealist philosophy, and of being at the service of imperialist forces. Why teach Aristotle who despised women and defended slavery? Why teach Plato whom Lenin derided as the author of “super-stupid metaphysics of ideas”? Why teach Saint Thomas Aquinas, who was propagating anti-scientific superstition? Why teach Descartes who in his notion of cogito completely ignored the class struggle?

  The professors were abused and humiliated. Heckling and caterwauling were a standard weapon of the militant students then, and they are a standard weapon of the militant students today.

  Each time the results are the same: certain authors are stigmatized, certain arguments cannot be raised, and certain questions must not be asked. Both then and now the ideological hooligans live in the illusion that they open new perspectives and tear down the existing barricades. In fact, they are doing the opposite: they help to legitimize intellectual vulgarity and intimidate all courageous and independent thinking. They reinforce this feature of all ideological regimes, which George Orwell called "thought crimes."

• Peak Woke Philosophy, by Daniel A. Kaufman The Electric Agora, commenting on a recent skirmish over gender-related politics and academic freedom:

  The essential thing to realize is that woke philosophy isn’t philosophy at all, but politics by another name. Philosophy, for the most part, is conducted by way of arguments and aspires to relative dispassion and (in the modern era) is largely an intellectual endeavor, the purpose of which is to raise tough, serious questions with regard to a highly diverse set of topics. It’s mode is essentially critical. The aim is not to win or to feel good about oneself or to obtain a particular policy outcome or to identify and punish wrongdoers of one stripe or another. These are the aims of social and political activism and agitprop. And yet, this is what woke philosophy is all about: specifically, the advancement and establishment of contemporary identitarian politics within the profession and the society at large.

  On a related note, Brien Leiter of Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog is keeping tabs on the internecine debate within the halls of philosophy.

  Salvador Dalí’s Illustrations for The Bible (1963):

  ... These are not his first religious subjects; he had always referenced big scenes and broad themes in Catholicism. But the illustrations represent a deeper engagement with the primary text—105 paintings in all, each based on select passages from the Latin Vulgate Bible. Published by Rizzoli in 1969, Biblia Sacra (The Sacred Bible) was commissioned by Dalí’s friend, Dr. Guiseppe Albareto, a devout Catholic whose intention “for this massive undertaking,” writes the Lockport St. Gallery, “was to bring the artist back to his religious roots.” Whatever effect that might have had, Dalí approaches the project with the same diligence evident in his other illustrations—he takes artistic risks while making a sincere effort to stay close to the spirit of the text. If he did this work for the money, he earned it.

  

• Slut Shaming in the Adoration Chapel, by Larry Denninger. A Catholic Misfit 08/09/19. -- Or, how NOT to be a Catholic.

• The Alt-Left Media Landscape, Ray Suarez (WBUR Podcast). "It’s not just the alt-right. A vibrant alt-left media landscape is peddling conspiracies to politicians and news consumers alike."

• Leonard Cohen’s Cocktail Recipe: Learn How to Make "The Red Needle" OpenCulture 08/07/19.

• Lastly, a bit of humor: Here’s an Actual Nightmare: Naomi Wolf Learning On-Air That Her Book Is Wrong (NYMag)

"The Light of Christ: An Introduction to Catholicism", by Thomas J. White

The Light of Christ: An Introduction to Catholicism
by Thomas Joseph White.
The Catholic University of America Press (August 4, 2017). 328 pages.

The Light of Christ provides an accessible presentation of Catholicism that is grounded in traditional theology, but engaged with a host of contemporary questions or objections. Inspired by the theologies of Irenaeus, Thomas Aquinas and John Henry Newman, and rooted in a post-Vatican II context, Fr. Thomas Joseph White presents major doctrines of the Christian religion in a way that is comprehensible for non-specialists: knowledge of God, the mystery of the Trinity, the Incarnation and the atonement, the sacraments and the moral life, eschatology and prayer.

At the same time, The Light of Christ also addresses topics such as evolution, the modern historical study of Jesus and the Bible, and objections to Catholic moral teaching. Touching on the concerns of contemporary readers, Fr. White examines questions such as whether Christianity is compatible with the findings of the modern sciences, do historical Jesus studies disrupt or confirm the teaching of the faith, and does history confirm the antiquity of Catholic claims.

This book serves as an excellent introduction for young professionals with no specialized background in theology who are interested in learning more about Catholicism, or as an introduction to Catholic theology. It will also serve as a helpful text for theology courses in a university context.

As Fr. White states in the book's introduction: "This is a book that offers itself as a companion. I do not presume to argue the reader into the truths of the Catholic faith, though I will make arguments. My goal is to make explicit in a few broad strokes the shape of Catholicism. I hope to outline its inherent intelligibility or form as a mystery that is at once visible and invisible, ancient and contemporary, mystical and reasonable."

Fr. White is the director of the Thomistic Institute at the Dominican House of Studies, Washington, D.C., and author of many books, including Wisdom in the Face of Modernity: A Thomistic Study in Natural Theology, The Incarnate Lord: A Thomistic Study in Christology, and Exodus Theological Commentary. He is co-editor of the academic journal Nova et Vetera and in 2011 was appointed an ordinary member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Related

• The Light of Christ: A Conversation with Thomas J. White, OP - Thomas Joseph White, O.P., joins First Things editor R. R. Reno in a conversation about his new book. 10/13/17.
• The Light of Christ is far more than an "Introduction", by James V. Schall. Catholic World Report 10/6/17: "Fr. Thomas Joseph White’s new book is an erudite, rich, and accessible guide to Catholicism that demonstrates in the inner cohesion and profound logic of the Faith."
• A Review of Fr. Thomas Joseph White’s The Light of Christ, by Casey Chalk. Called to Communion 11/20/17.
• [Counterpoint]: A Life, Not a Grammar: The Limits of Theology, by Paul J. Griffiths, Commonweal 03/01/18. "A form of life isn’t the kind of thing that can be introduced by elucidating its grammar."
• A Searcher Discovers Thomas Aquinas The Public Discourse 11/12/18.

Exploring Aquinas with the help of Reinhard Hutter

In Dust Bound for Heaven: Explorations in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas, pp. 20-25, Reinhard Hutter provides an immensely helpful and insightful list of books for those interested in further explorations of St. Thomas Aquinas:

For those readers who come as neophytes to the thought of Thomas, the following invitation to further explorations should serve as a beginner’s guide to his philosophy and theology, a beginner’s guide that gradually progresses to some more substantive and demanding interpretations of Thomas that are most helpful. For those readers already more advanced in their encounter with Thomas’s teaching and for those who would call themselves Thomists, the more demanding among the following list of studies simply indicate among a much larger body of Aquinas scholarship those works to which I am most gratefully indebted.

The best popular introduction to Thomas’s life and work remains G. K. Chesterton, Saint Thomas Aquinas (2009) and the best recent scholarly introduction is Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P., Saint Thomas Aquinas, Volume 1: The Person and His Work (2005). For a lovely, accessible, yet still profound paraphrase of the Summa theologiae in pocket size, the reader might turn to Walter Farrell, O.P., and Martin J. Healy, My Way of Life: Pocket Edition of St. Thomas: The Summa Simplified for Everyone (1952).

The most accessible and concise introduction to Thomas’s philosophy is Edward Feser, Aquinas: A Beginner’s Guide (2009), to Thomas’s theology is Michael Dauphinais and Matthew Levering, Knowing the Love of Christ: An Introduction to the Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (2002), to Thomas’s ethics is Paul Wadell, The Primacy of Love: An Introduction to the Ethics of Thomas Aquinas (1992), and to Thomas’s masterwork, the Summa theologiae, is Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P., Aquinas’s Summa: Background, Structure, and Reception (2005). An exceedingly helpful resource to Thomas’s theology for beginners is Joseph P. Wawrykow, The Westminster Handbook to Thomas Aquinas (2005). Those readers who want to get an exposure to Thomas’s theology under the guidance of leading contemporary Aquinas scholars should turn to The Theology of Thomas Aquinas, edited by Rik Van Nieuwenhove and Joseph Wawrykow (2005). For a brief, concise, and lucid account of the remarkable history of reception, interpretation, defense, and application of Thomas’s thought in the course of the more than seven centuries since his death, students of Thomas should turn to Romanus Cessario, O.P., A Short History of Thomism (2005). For a useful guide into various aspects of Thomas’s philosophical thought that organizes his theology, the beginner might turn to The Cambridge Companion to Aquinas, edited by Norman Kretzmann and Eleonore Stump (1993). For a first introduction into Thomas’s metaphysics that is as accessible as it is lucid, one can hardly do better than to avail oneself of W. Norris Clarke, S.J., The One and the Many: A Contemporary Thomistic Metaphysics (2001).

For a balanced and lucid overview of and solid introduction to all topics treated in the Summa theologiae, the student of Thomas’s thought might first want to consult Brian Davies, O.P., The Thought of Thomas Aquinas (1992). However, the reader who is looking for guides to the most central treatises of Thomas’s masterpiece will find excellent guidance from the following studies, which are not listed alphabetically but along the lines of the order of teaching (ordo disciplinae) the Summa theologiae unfolds.

On the First Part of the Summa:

• The Hackett Aquinas: The Treatise on the Divine Nature. Summa Theologiae I, 1-13 (2006)
• Rudi te Velde, Aquinas on God: The “Divine Science” of the Summa Theologiae (2006)
• Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., The One God: A Commentary on the First Part of St. Thomas’ Theological Summa (1943)
• Matthew Levering, Scripture and Metaphysics: Aquinas and the Renewal of Trinitarian Theology (2004)
• Gilles Emery, O.P., The Trinitarian Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (2010)
• Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., The Trinity and God the Creator: Commentary on St. Thomas’ Theological Summa I, 27-119 (1952)
• Robert E. Brennan, O.P., Thomistic Psychology: A Philosophic Analysis of the Nature of Man (1941)
• Pia Francesca de Solenni, A Hermeneutic of Aquinas’s Mens through a Sexually Differentiated Epistemology: Toward the Understanding of Woman as Imago Dei (2000)
• Bernard Lonergan, S.J., Grace and Freedom: Operative Grace in the Thought of St. Thomas Aquinas (2000)
• Jacques Maritain, God and the Permission of Evil (1966)
• Herbert McCabe, O.P., God and Evil in the Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (2010)

On the First of the Second Part of the Summa:

• Servais Pinckaers, O.P., The Sources of Christian Ethics (1995)
• Denis J. M. Bradley, Aquinas on the Twofold Human Good: Reason and Human Happiness in Aquinas’s Moral Science (1997)
• Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., Beatitude: A Commentary on Thomas’ Theological Summa I-II, 1-54 (1956)
• Ralph McInerny, Ethica Thomistica: The Moral Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas (1982)
• Steven A. Long, The Teleological Grammar of the Moral Act (2007)
• Stephen L. Brock, Action and Conduct: Thomas Aquinas and the Theory of Action (1998)
• Nicholas E. Lombardo, O.P., The Logic of Desire: Aquinas on Emotion (2010)
• George P. Klubertanz, S.J., Habits and Virtues: A Philosophical Analysis (1965)
• Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues: Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance (1965)
• Romanus Cessario, O.P., The Moral Virtues and Theological Ethics (2008)
• Fulvio di Blasi, God and the Natural Law: A Rereading of Thomas Aquinas (2006)
• Jean Porter, Nature as Reason: A Thomistic Theory of the Natural Law (2005)
• Charles Journet, The Meaning of Grace (1960)
• Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., Grace: Commentary on the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas, I-II, 109-114 (2010)
• Joseph P. Wawrykow, God’s Grace and Human Action: “Merit” in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas (1995)

On the Second of the Second Part of the Summa:

• Stephen J. Pope (ed.), The Ethics of Aquinas (2002)
• Lawrence Dewan, O.P., Wisdom, Law, and Virtue: Essays in Thomistic Ethics (2008)
• Romanus Cessario, O.P., Christian Faith and the Theological Life (1996)
• Romanus Cessario, O.P., The Virtues, Or, the Examined Life (2002)
• Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., The Theological Virtues, Volume 1: On Faith (1965)
• Michael Sherwin, O.P., By Knowledge and by Love: Charity and Knowledge in the Moral Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (2004)
• Josef Pieper, Faith, Hope, Love (1997)
• Hans Urs von Balthasar, Thomas und die Charismatik: Kommentar zu Thomas von Aquin, Summa Theologica II-II 171-182, besondere Gnadengaben und die zwei Wege menschlichen Lebens (1996).

On the Third Part of the Summa:

• Romanus Cessario, O.P., Christian Satisfaction in Aquinas (1982)
• Paul Gondreau, The Passions of Christ’s Soul in the Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (2009)
• Matthew Levering, Christ’s Fulfillment of Torah and Temple: Salvation according to Thomas Aquinas (2002)
• Reginald Garrigou Lagrange, O.P., Christ the Saviour: A Commentary on the Third Part of the Theological Summa of St. Thomas
• Coleman E. O’Neill, O.P., Meeting Christ in the Sacraments (2002)
• Abbot Vonier, O.S.B., A Key to the Doctrine of the Eucharist (2003-2004)
• Charles Journet, The Mass: The Presence of the Sacrifice of the Cross (2008)

To assist the reader in grasping Aquinas' philosophy (without which his theology "cannot be adequately understood, let alone appreciated"), Hutter offers the following recommendations:

The most thorough historical-genetic treatment of Thomas’s philosophy is John F. Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas: From Finite Being to Uncreated Being (2000). The best account to see Thomas’ metaphysics concretely at work in a conceptual reconstruction of its main moves would be Lawrence Dewan, O.P., Form and Being (2006). Eleonore Stump, Aquinas (2003), offers an excellent treatment of Thomas’s thought, primarily his philosophy, but also aspects of his theology, that is directed to a readership influenced by analytic philosophy and the natural sciences. Inspired by an Aristotelian-Thomist integration of natural philosophy and metaphysics, Benedict M. Ashley, O.P., in his opus magnum, The Way toward Wisdom: An Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Introduction to Metaphysics (2006), offers an impressive demonstration of how the pursuit of philosophical wisdom along the lines of Thomas — metaphysics as meta-science — allows a comprehensive vision of all human sciences in a coherent and expansive framework. Jacques Maritain’s earlier and in many ways unsurpassed classic, Distinguish to Unite or The Degrees of Knowledge (1995), offers an even more expansive framework of Thomist epistemology: from the knowledge conveyed by the senses to natural philosophy and natural science, from there to metaphysical knowledge and theological knowledge, and finally to mystical knowledge. And in order to find out why indeed Thomism as a coherent intellectual tradition of philosophical discourse and inquiry proves superior to modern and postmodern modes of such discourse and inquiry, one cannot do better than turn to think through the argument advanced in what has become a classic in a very brief time: Alasdair MacIntyre’s Gifford Lectures, Three Rival Versions of Moral Inquiry: Tradition, Encyclopaedia, Genealogy (1990). Another set of expanded Gifford Lectures offers a brilliant and spirited defense of Thomas’s understanding of philosophical wisdom. No other recent work will help the interested reader better to understand why natural theology was absolutely indispensable to Thomas’s overall theological project than Ralph McInerny, Praeambula Fidei: Thomism and the God of the Philosophers (2006). For a contemporary restatement of Thomas’s natural theology that addresses and rebuts the criticisms against natural theology raised by Kant and Heidegger, one best turns to the lucidly argued book by Thomas Joseph White, O.P., Wisdom in the Face of Modernity: A Study in Thomistic Natural Theology (2009).

Those who want to find out — contrary to recent rumors — why Thomas’s philosophy is far from dead but intensely engaged by contemporary analytic philosophers might want to consult John Haldane (ed.), Mind, Metaphysics, and Value in Thomistic and Analytic Traditions (2002), John P. O’Callaghan, Thomist Realism and the Linguistic Turn: Toward a More Perfect Form of Existence (2003), Craig Paterson and Matthew Pugh, Analytical Thomism (2006), and David S. Oderberg, Real Essentialism (2007). For an instructive and very broad-minded Thomist engagement of philosophy as presently practiced in America, one might turn to Thomas Hibbs, Aquinas, Ethics, and Philosophy of Religion: Metaphysics and Practice (2007), and for learning to appreciate the ongoing relevance of Thomas’s doctrine of natural law for contemporary political and legal theory and for the practice of law-making, the reader will profit immensely from Russell Hittinger, The First Grace: Rediscovering the Natural Law in a PostChristian World (2003) and from J. Budziszewski, The Line Through the Heart: Natural Law as Fact, Theory, and Sign of Contradiction (2009).

For those readers who are interested to find out how Thomas’s theology inspires and informs the work of contemporary theologians, they might want to turn to Ressourcement Thomism: Sacred Doctrine, the Sacraments, and the Moral Life, edited by Reinhard Hütter and Matthew Levering (2010) and to The Analogy of Being: Invention of the Antichrist or the Wisdom of God?, edited by Thomas Joseph White, O.P. (2011).

By the time the reader has reached this point of the introduction it might have dawned upon him or her that this kind of invitation to a deeper exploration of Thomas’s philosophical and theological thought might presuppose a more encompassing intellectual reorientation and reeducation. Such a reader is well advised to take advantage of two rather unique books, one as precious as the other: A. G. Sertillanges, O.P., The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods (1980), and Josef Pieper, Leisure — The Basis of Culture (1998).

If from all the varied analyses I have put before you I may venture to extract a conclusion from their respective conclusions, I should say that the essential result of Christian philosophy is a deeply considered affirmation of a reality and goodness intrinsic to nature, such as the Greeks, lacking knowledge of its source and end, only dimly forshadowed. ...

In the first centuries of the Church, [...] to be a Christian was essentially to hold a middle position between Mani who denied the goodness of nature, and Pelagius who denied its wounds, and therewish the need of grace to heal the wounds.

-- Etienne Gilson, p. 419-420. The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy.

Here and There

• Artur Rosman () has a two-part interview with Thomas Pfau, Alice Mary Baldwin Professor of English and professor of German at Duke University and author of Minding the Modern: Human Agency, Intellectual Traditions, and Responsible Knowledge: Part I: Threatening Naturalism’s Universal Authority (08/13/15) | No Theology, No Phenomenology of the Person? (08/14/15).

• Letter to a Friend on Ressourcement and the New Theology The Paraphasic 12/01/14:

  A friend of mine, a student in a very prominent graduate program in theology at a major Catholic university in the US, wrote to me recently. In his letter he expressed confusion and dismay at the hostility to Western theology and liturgy since the Middle Ages which he has encountered among his professors, and asked me for some thoughts on the matter. ...

• Bishop-elect Fr. Robert Barron (via Alisdair MacIntyre): "We've lost the capacity even to have a coherent moral conversation..."

• Would Alasdair MacIntyre Live in a “Benedict Option” Community?, by Dr. Adam J. De Ville. "For all the intriguing ideas that seem to huddle under the capacious canopy of the “Benedict option,” and for all my sympathy towards it, there are three lingering doubts about it."

• A Quick Guide for Doctrinally Classifying Contemporary Catholics Paraphasic Catholic. 05/04/15.

• The Conversion of Paul Ryan, by Timothy Kirchoff. Ethika Politika 05/21/15. On Ryan's involvement with community activist Bob Woodson in Comeback, a documentary series sharing "the inspiring, true stories of real-life Americans overcoming adversity in our nation’s cities and communities."

  Over the course of the 2012 presidential campaign, Ryan eagerly employed the language of Catholic social thought, invoking subsidiarity alongside solidarity and arguing that the preferential option for the poor does not imply a preferential option for big government. It may once have been possible to read his use of such terms as a cynical attempt to twist the Church’s teaching to support Republican economic policies, but Ryan seems to have taken these principles to heart and sought out the opportunity to see them lived out.

• The new Pope Benedict Roundup and Pope Francis Roundup of news and commentary are live on their respective blogs.

Hutton on Feingold and Milbank - "Thomism goes Old School"

[Cross-posted from Henri De Lubac, Thomas Aquinas and the debate over "Pure Nature", a blog specifically devoted to logging reading notes and chronicling my explorations into this particular Thomistic debate].

Writing in Nova et Vetera ("Desiderium Naturale Visionis Dei -- Est autem duplex hominis beatitudo sive felicitas: Some Observations about Lawrence Feingold’s and John Milbank’s Recent Interventions in the Debate over the Natural Desire to See God", pp. 81-131) Reinhard Hütter bristles at Milbank's sharply polemical criticism of Feingold:

In his recent opuscule, The Suspended Middle: Henri de Lubac and the Debate concerning the Supernatural, John Milbank characterizes Feingold’s work as “arch-reactionary,”“written to reinstate a Garrigou-Lagrange type position,” and his exegetical method as “much like that of the proof-texting of a Protestant fundamentalist,” hence representing the “die-hard,” “palaeolithic” neo-Thomism. Moreover, in a less than subtle form of invective, Milbank denies his interlocutor the honor of being named correctly by consistently misnaming him throughout as “Feinberg.” The readers of Milbank’s treatise -- most of whom in all likelihood are neither experts in the thought of Thomas Aquinas, Henri de Lubac, or Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange in particular nor of Catholic theology in general -- are thus invited to entertain the suspicion of some sinister right-wing ecclesiastical conspiracy. And since Feingold’s tome is, quite unfortunately, virtually impossible to lay hands on [not anymore? -- Christopher] as well as (should one succeed in getting hold of it) a much more demanding read than Milbank’s opuscule, very few of Milbank’s readers will be able to double-check the all too quick dismissal of a serious piece of theological scholarship the implications of which are, however, unsurprisingly, less than supportive of Milbank’s own project. But why should anyone care about the truth of the charge if one of the presently leading opinion formers of contemporary Anglo-American Protestant theology has sent out such weighty signals as “arch-reactionary, die-hard, palaeolithic neo-Thomism”?

On Milbank's embarassing mispelling of Feingold as "Feinberg", Hütter further adds: "The possibility, however, that the consistent use of the misnomer “Feinberg” simply reflects a neglect of contingent details, cannot be definitively excluded, since, after all, the reader has to recognize behind “Jacques Maintain” the Thomist philosopher Jacques Maritain (25, note 9)." If John Milbank were to ever release a new edition of The Suspended Middle, it would undoubtedly benefit from a proofreader.

* * *

Hütter's lengthy review of Feingold and Milbank is well recommended. Like Hütter, I cannot say the same for The Suspended Middle, although with the caveat that I have personally only made my way through the first several chapters before deciding -- at least for the time being -- that it would be preferable to postpone Milbank and complete my objective of finishing Feingold's immensely more satisfying (and immensely more lucid) opus by the close of this year. Indeed, I found my subjective experience of reading Feingold contra Milbank to be in part aesthetically-motivated: the pleasure of reading the former as contrasted with the painful drudgery of the latter.

Feingold surveys the entire history of Catholic theology and the Thomist commentorial tradition on this particular subject, with the position of each author clearly formulated, substantially documented and laid out in detail such that one can grasp with relative ease where each stands on any given question: Scotus, Cajetan, Suarez, De Lubac, and a host of other Thomists, not to mention Aquinas himself. Feingold's text contains copious quotations from his source materials, and is exhaustively referenced and footnoted. Nothing is left to question. One cannot but be awed by the herculean effort it must have taken to read through, understand, meticulously assemble and publish this body of work. To call it a "magisterial" treatment in scope and substance is not an understatement.

Unfortunately, my experience of navigating Milbank's Suspended Middle is much akin to groping my way through a London fog after a night of pub-hopping. His work is as sparse on direct quotations as Feingold is indulgent, leaving the reader thirsty for validation beyond purported claims and wishing Milbank would deign to engage in what he denigrates as "Protestant proof-texting". For example, consider Milbank's blithe assertion that:

"Cajetan and neo-scholasticism, by contrast [to De Lubac's ontological revisionism], leave philosophical ontology alone in its immanence: the being of human nature, as of everything else, can be specified without reference to God, or only God as ultimate efficient cause. On the other hand, cosmic and human beings in no way (as it does for De Lubac) anticipates grace. The structures of grace are without precedent: yet in practice scholasticism will have to speak of them in terms of analogues taken from an immanent univocal ontology. Since nothing in 'purely natural' being of itself participates in divine esse or by analogical ascent negates its own non-self-sufficiency, these analogues will be purely in terms of the quantitative extension of the range of an adequately "given" meaning. And what natural analogues to grace will be available in these terms save those of an anonymous and overwhelming force? or a nominal and invisible raising of status which yet commands visible jurisdiction? [p. 30]

How's that for a single paragraph? -- and I assure you it's characteristic of the whole lot. I'm embarrassed to say that, having read several hundred pages of Feingold (and in this year alone, reams of academic articles and book reviews on Aquinas) I've never experienced the cognitive difficulty I've encountered with Milbank. Does anybody else find him as impenetrable as I do? (Rhetorical question -- googling "John Milbank" and "dense" turns up 10,600 results with such descriptions of his works as "a dense read"; "Impressively dense"; "dense but quite profound"; "dense and exquisite"; "splendidly dense"; "characteristically dense"; "poetically dense"; "painfully dense"; "dense and difficult"; "dense, heady and bewildering"; "impossibly dense"; "dense, challenging and elusive"; "dense, frequently heady and inclined toward ornately convoluted prose"; "a dark, pith pit of dense propositions" -- and possessing a "dense, intellectual style that has prompted charges of elitism." I may not be traveling alone.

Moving on ... Hütter also offers the following intuition of why Milbank finds "Feinberg" -- sorry, Feingold -- so exasperating:

While Milbank’s project is neither guided nor framed by the norms and criteria of Catholic theology, his reaction is nevertheless indicative of how not a few contemporary Catholic theologians might react to Feingold’s book as well. For Feingold indeed challenges numerous assumptions received and settled in the first three decades after Vatican II. The first is methodological: In the wake of neo-Marxist sociology, the linguistic turn in Anglo-Saxon philosophy, and the hermeneutical and poststructuralist developments in continental philosophy, theology for many a contemporary Catholic theologian can only be conceived as defensible and intelligible in a thoroughly historical-contextualist and constructivist mode. Every theological claim must needs be advanced, read, and assessed in light of the historical, communal, and political context in which it is produced and to which it is addressed. The only way to forward arguments is by situating and out-narrating opponents as well as offering rhetorical and aesthetic appeals leading to the volitional as well as conceptual conversion of the interlocutor. Propositional discourse as informed by metaphysical realism and discursive, conceptual argumentation is therefore at present widely dismissed as a suspiciously disembodied and philosophically outdated mode of speculative theology, oblivious to the historical, pragmatic, and practice oriented nature of theology itself and thus vulnerable to being constantly co-opted by deeply entrenched as well as concealed discourses of power and interest. This wholesale rejection of what was seen as the ossified discourse of textbook neo-scholasticism was accompanied -- in the wake of Heidegger as well as Wittgenstein -- by hailing the "end of metaphysics" in general and the Aristotelian Thomist metaphysics in particular. And since -- on the basis of Leo XIII’s encyclical Aeterni Patris -- Thomas Aquinas had again been instantiated as the loadstar of a renewed Catholic philosophy, according to an understanding that interpreted Vatican II as the license to break with that very tradition, he had to be put aside as outmoded too.

According to Hütter, Feingold distinguishes himself in that his mode of writing circumvents the "historical-contexualist and constructivist" expectations of postmodern scholarship by "entering into" the scholastic commentorial tradition, focusing exclusively on Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus (as well as some Scotists), the Thomist commentators (including Suárez) up to Garrigou-Lagrange and Henri de Lubac.

Feingold provokes by operating in a mode of discourse very unfamiliar to theological readers by now largely unaccustomed to the conceptual precision and rigor once cultivated by the “schoolmen.” Differently put, Feingold’s mode of discourse is highly mimetic of the virtually forgotten tradition of Thomist commentators. ...

What makes Feingold so provocative is that the form of his discourse -- in stark contrast to de Lubac’s way of reading the commentators -- is shaped not by a historical hermeneutic but by reconstructing and thus entering their own way of conducting a speculative theological enquiry, a mimetic exercise reconstructing and thus continuing the commentators’ discursive mimesis of Aquinas.

As Hütter points out, this distinction also applies to Feingold's critical engagement with De Lubac himself -- whereas De Lubac's writing "transposes the speculative theological discourse of the commentators into a historical-hermeneutical frame of inquiry", Feingold "[enters into] the commentatorial tradition with its propositional-discursive mode of operation" which is distinguished by its metaphysical realism (dismissed by Milbank as a "Garrigou-Langrange type position" p. 24 Suspended Middle). Thus:

Feingold provokes by returning to and, by implication, rehabilitating an older discursive tradition and submitting de Lubac’s theology to the conceptual rigor of this tradition. Feingold is so irritating because he picks up the ball where it was dropped -- with the broad acceptance of the theological approach advanced by Henri de Lubac and other representatives of the nouvelle théologie -- without signaling awareness of what has happened in Catholic theology since. [Hütter, pp. 93-94]

Henri De Lubac on the Spirit of the Age

The Christian thinkers of the past are looked down upon as if they no longer had anything to say; the traditional formulations of faith are stated in such a way as to appear ridiculous, so as to hasten their replacement. And under the pretext of merely changing this or that word or phrase, it is the very essence of our faith which runs the risk of being sifted away. . . .

Whatever is recriminatory, whatever excites, is declared prophetic, even if it is evident that it stems from ignorance, or from concessions made to what is currently in vogue—and this is the exact opposite of what we mean by prophetic! . . .

We must not be afraid to say so: there is nothing in all of this that is promising. A faith which dissolves itself is unable to engender anything whatever. A community which breaks up is incapable of radiating or of attracting others. Agitation is not synonymous with life. That last hatched slogan is not necessarily a new thought. The noisiest critics are frequently the most sterile.

-- Edward D. Lubac. “ The Church in Crisis,” Theology Digest 17 (1969): 312–25; here 317. As relayed by Edward T. Oakes ("The Surnaturel Controversy: A Survey and a Response" Nova et Vetera 9:3), who notes that "most secondary scholarship on de Lubac, both pro and con, largely ignores his criticism of liberal Catholicism in the wake of Vatican II".

(Oh, the irony).

Here and There

• Interviewing Ikons: Fr Aidan Kimel - Interview with Fr. Kimel - one-time Catholic convert from Episcopalianism, now Orthodox and living "a tranquil retired existence in the foothills of Roanoke, Virginia, where he writes articles no one reads (or so he thinks) for his blog, Eclectic Orthodoxy." Kimel's post-conversion experience as a Catholic in contemporary times is, alas, may ring all too familiar to some readers: "My conversion to Catholicism had largely occurred in my head with my books. I knew very little about the Catholic Church on the ground level. Speaking only for myself, I increasingly came to realize that I could not spiritually survive in the Catholic Church."

• 'The Classical Moment': Author Q&A with Father James Schall, S.J. Sean Salai, S.J. interviews the prolific Fr. James V. Schall on his latest book, The Classical Moment: Selected Essays on Knowledge and Its Pleasures (America 07/14/14):

  When you write, you write among both friends and antagonists. Of the latter, you want, as Aquinas would advise, to find the truth in what they are trying to say. Of the former, you are grateful that someone else has seen a truth before you did, or explained to you why it was so. So to “mix” these references is simply to be honest. Someone else really did guide you to some truth or insight that you might have otherwise never noticed.

• Cultural-warrior Ryan T. Anderson in action (+ Q&A). Methinks this is how debates of this nature should be conducted, sans vitriol from either side.

• How Husserl changed Catholic attitudes toward Judaism - Artur Rosman (Cosmos in the Lost) traces connections between phenomenology and Catholicism.

• "A Word in Favor of Ideology" Throne and Alter 08/28/14,the author expresses his affinity with the Marxists' historical perspective, in an age where "libertarianism is not an ideology in the old sense. It is a dogma," (Mark Lilla), the blogger explains his affinity for the Communists of yore.

• Recently published and translated by David Bentley Hart, Analogia Entis: Metaphysics- Original Structure and Universal Rhythm (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. February 2014)| Reviewed by Christopher J. Malloy (Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews):

  Although Erich Przywara (1889–1972) was one of the preeminent Catholic theologians of his time and a profound influence on such people as Hans Urs von Balthasar and Joseph Ratzinger, he has remained virtually unknown in North America. This volume includes Przywara’s groundbreaking Analogia Entis, originally published in 1932, and his subsequent essays on the concept analogia entis -- the analogy between God and creation -- which has currency in philosophical and theological circles today.

• In "The Rock Star of One First Street", Stephen Presser suggests that Bruce Allen Murphy's recent intellectual biography of Justice Antonin Scalia makes him out to be more honorable than the author may have intended, whose "jurisprudence is not really cherished by Professor Murphy, but he does a creditable job in explaining it and offering it a grudging respect."

• "A Secular Age 2.0" - Matthew J. Milliner reviews Minding the Modern: Human Agency, Intellectual Traditions, and Responsible Knowledge (Books and Culture):

  ... like Charles Taylor (A Secular Age) and Brad Gregory (The Unintended Reformation), Pfau is a man equipped for the enormous cartographic task of remapping the rise of modernity. Sweeping narrative retellings such as Pfau's are frequently accused of being unfocused, tangential, historically selective, or insufficiently edited. Pfau, however, deftly avoids dilettantism by never quite leaving his realm of professional training even while he ranges widely beyond it. Which is to say, Minding the Modern is no history, nor is Pfau a historian. Instead, it is an extended, historically grounded close reading of texts that an accomplished literature professor is well equipped to provide. As he puts it, "any account of competing or intersecting intellectual traditions has to rest on the kind of close, textual analysis that, at its best, has always been the bread and butter of literary studies." Such an approach enables Pfau to seamlessly move, for example, between Shaftsbury and Heidegger, Augustine and Arendt, Levinas and Cardinal Newman, or Marion and Aquinas, on the same page. This stems not from indecision but from a premeditated attempt to intertwine historical and philosophical, or horizontal and vertical, approaches with a sustained argument. In addition, Pfau focuses his wide-ranging account by choosing the (admittedly enormous) category of human personhood, and its corollaries of will and agency, as the vehicle in which he takes his tour of the ages. His express aim is "to capture the intrinsic idea of will and person through a series of forensic readings of representative arguments."

• Lastly, why am I just now hearing about this?!? -- The Grand Inquisitor, a comic book from the fevered imagination of Catholic blogger John Zmirak:

  The tale is simple, but all its permutations are profound. Sometime in the near future, a papal conclave drags on as the College of Cardinals finds itself at a deadlock. Tension mounts outside the Vatican walls. The liberals stage a walkout and hurl their scarlet robes to the crowd below in protest. The few remaining electors choose a complete unknown as the next pontiff, an African monk from a forgotten Traditionalist order. (Think Hadrian the Seventh, but with real saints and real sinners facing off rather than an empty conflict of aesthete poseurs and vulgar bureacrats). Unfortunately, one prince of the Church, possessing his own strange and alarming agenda, arranges a mix-up at the new pontiff's airport pickup. The vast bulk of the story deals with the confrontation between the cardinal--incidentally, a dead ringer for Teilhard de Chardin--and the simple priest, now imprisoned in the mental ward of a Roman hospital along with a dozen or so deranged papal claimants of a less legitimate nature. What happens next will decide the fate of the Church, and with it, the world.

  

Thomas Aquinas' "Summa theologiae": A Biography - Bernard McGinn

On my "to read" list: Thomas Aquinas's "Summa theologiae": A Biography (Lives of Great Religious Books), by Bernard McGinn.
Princeton University Press (May 25, 2014). 272 pgs.

In full disclosure, I promised that I would give it mention on my blog while the review was forthcoming. McGinn is distinguished for his extensive scholarship of Christian mysticism and does not identify himself as "a card carrying member of any Thomist party." Nevertheless:

"... I'd been reading Thomas for almost sixty years and teaching him for over forty. When I was studying a dry-as-dust version of neo-Thomist philosophy from 1957 to 1959, I was rescued from despair by reading the works of Etienne Gilson, especially his Being and some Philosophers. . . . between 1959 and 1963, I was privileged to work with two great modern investigators of Thomas, Joseph de Finance and Bernard Lonergan. It was then I realized that no matter what kind of theology one elects to pursue in life, there is no getting away from Thomas. So the opportunity to come back to Thomas and the Summa was both a challenge and a delight." [From the Preface]

Suffice to say I am intrigued, and will have more to report once I get into it.

From the Publisher

This concise book tells the story of the most important theological work of the Middle Ages, the vast Summa theologiae of Thomas Aquinas, which holds a unique place in Western religion and philosophy. Written between 1266 and 1273, the Summa was conceived by Aquinas as an instructional guide for teachers and novices and a compendium of all the approved teachings of the Catholic Church. It synthesizes an astonishing range of scholarship, covering hundreds of topics and containing more than a million and a half words--and was still unfinished at the time of Aquinas's death.

Here, Bernard McGinn, one of today's most acclaimed scholars of medieval Christianity, vividly describes the world that shaped Aquinas, then turns to the Dominican friar's life and career, examining Aquinas's reasons for writing his masterpiece, its subject matter, and the novel way he organized it. McGinn gives readers a brief tour of the Summa itself, and then discusses its reception over the past seven hundred years. He looks at the influence of the Summa on such giants of medieval Christendom as Meister Eckhart, its ridicule during the Enlightenment, the rise and fall of Neothomism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the role of the Summa in the post-Vatican II church, and the book's enduring relevance today.

Tracing the remarkable life of this iconic work, McGinn's wide-ranging account provides insight into Aquinas's own understanding of the Summa as a communication of the theological wisdom that has been given to humanity in revelation.

Cessario on Cajetan and the Communio School

The Communio school of theology, taken globally, and not as it plays out under the influence of the American edition, is more difficult to define than Thomism. Thomists are those who read Aquinas, and so may be distinguished from those who read and adhere to other major Christian thinkers such as Scotus or St. Bonaventure or Ockham. Partisans of the Communio school, on the other hand, study many authors; their return to the sources embraces a wide range of both ancient and recent theologians and philosophers, and even includes consulting social scientists.

[Tracey] Rowland identifies many of these figures in her chapters. Suffice it to remark that a common feature of Communio school theology is that its adherents subscribe without hesitation to a viewpoint that lately has been set forth by Nicholas M. Healy in his Thomas Aquinas: Theologian of the Christian Life: “In his commentary on the Summa theologiae, Cajetan so separates nature from grace that humanity now has two ends, natural and supernatural. . . .” Healy of course repeats an assertion that was set forth with remarkable success in the twentieth century by Jesuit Father Henri de Lubac, later Cardinal of the Roman Church.

It has always struck me as odd that so many good-willed theologians accept the view that a twentieth-century French Jesuit whose intellectual interests were wide-ranging occupied a better position to understand what St.Thomas Aquinas taught about the finalities of the human person than did a sixteenth-century Italian humanist, who had represented Catholic doctrine in person to no less imposing a figure than Martin Luther and whose commentary on the entire Summa theologiae appears by order of Pope Leo XIII in the critical edition of Aquinas’s opera omnia that bears that Pope’s name, the still incomplete Leonine edition. But they do. Many sincere people, including Tracey Rowland, accept the proposition that de Lubac laid bare a huge historical mistake about how to construe the relationship between nature and grace, and they seemingly consider his critique of Cardinal Cajetan and the Thomists who follow him a non-gainsayable principle of all future Catholic theology. What Cajetan obscured, de Lubac grasped with clarté. Nicholas Healy illustrates this conviction:“[T]he influence of the two-tier conception of reality became widespread and was understood by many theologians as a reasonable development of Thomas’s thought.” One could infer from remarks such as these that Tommaso De Vio, Cardinal Cajetan (1469–1534) should be known as the great betrayer of Aquinas instead of his papal approved interpreter. Prima facie, the proposition seems primitive.

Those who want to understand more about this golden apple of twentieth-century theological discord should consult the work of Professor Steven A. Long. His essays on topics such as the obediential potency and other related theological theses repay careful study. Long’s articles reveal the way that theologians have attempted to handle the difficult question of describing adequately the differentiation of finalities that the gratuitous bestowal of divine friendship on the members of the human race introduces into Catholic theology. Because of the centrality that this issue holds in the thought of many of the theologians that Rowland presents to her readers, I think it is important to alert those who will read her book, especially beginners in the discipline, that they should make up their own minds about de Lubac’s critique, and not assume that one eminent French Jesuit and 100,000 Communio followers can’t be wrong. The fact of the matter is that the differentiation of finalities that a Catholic theologian must consider in the human person remains a topic that has been ill served during the period after the Second Vatican Council.

Let me conclude this section with a word of advice to beginners: You can embrace Gaudium et Spes 22 and still follow Cardinal Cajetan.

Romanus Cessario, OP.
Nova et Vetera Vol. 2, No. 2 (2004).

* * *

Incidentally, today is Romanus Cessario's 73rd birthday. You may view more of his articles online here, his full CV here.

Mulcahy on Milbank

I particularly appreciate Mulcahy's Aquinas's Notion of Pure Nature and the Christian Integralism of Henri de Lubac for its demonstration of how De Lubac's criticism of pure nature has, carried to its logical conclusions, culminated in the "integralist revolution" of John Milbank, leading proponent of Radical Orthodoxy.

Mulcahy begins with an examination of the political origins of Radical Orthodoxy in Marxist theory and anti-Thatcherism (its hostility refocusing on the "neoimperialist" and "relatively genocidal" United States of America post-9/11). Originally Marxist in tone, Mulcahy observes how Milbank's vision of society has become exclusively theological -- endorsing socialism as not only the creed of "all sane, rational human beings" but as the vehicle by which the peace of the Church [is going to be] mediated to and established in the entire human community."

Maculhy also demonstrates Milbank's increasing receptivity to theocracy -- or rather "democraticed, anarchic theocracy": small, self-sustaining communities "Eucharistic in form, with a liturgical rhythm and a spiritual motivation pervading its system of peaceful sharing." Granted, Milbank does not pretend to know how it would be established.

Maculhy then addresses Milbank's interpretation of De Lubac as the basis for the "integralist revolution" (the notion that Vatican II enacted a "new theology of grace", recognizing that “in concrete, historical humanity there is no such thing as a state of ‘pure nature’. ... with the consequence that one cannot analytically separate ‘natural’ and ‘supernatural’ contributions to this integral unity.”)

If "everything is grace", nothing is truly secular. To regard philosophy, politics, science and culture as non-theological or possessing "autonomous and immanent secular realms" is tantamount to heresy, against which RO marshals itself in resistance via engagement in radical Christian politics. (Indeed, Milbank indicts De Lubac and Balthasar for being deficient in their "aversion to the secular order" [photographic evidence!]):

RO views any self-limiting theology—all liberal theology—as colluding in its own marginalisation. Radical Orthodoxy intends to reverse this marginalisation by proclaiming theology’s true scope, and by insisting on theology’s relevance in determining the validity of all modes of human discourse. The establishment of the commanding position of theology over all other modes of knowledge, and in regard to all other scholarly and scientific discourse, will thus be a step toward the building of a new Christian modernity. The hope of RO is that this new modernity will be one in which divine wisdom and peace reign over all.

But how, exactly, is the marginalization of theology to be countered? -- for while Pope Benedict might lament the "de-Hellenization" of academia (the attempt by scholars to separate Christianity from Greek philosophical thought), RO abandons reason and objective truth altogether, relinquishing itself to the postmodern depiction of Christianity as a "communal narrative", one among many, howbeit claiming to trump all others as "the narrative of The Word Incarnate":

Given such an exalted Christian claim, namely, that Christian discourse alone enacts and represents the divine Word, how are this discourse’s truth claims to be recognized as true in the Christian community of faith? The idea of objective verification or falsification has, in RO’s judgement, been discredited. The answer is that Christianity “out-narrates” any rival discourse. This is to imply that the Christian story, enacted in the community of faith, has a beauty and luminosity which other discourses lack. As a result, it exerts an aesthetic appeal on those touched by it. Once the attractiveness of the divine beauty is experienced, no other arguments or evidence need be considered. Rather, the very suggestion that such other forms of evidence could be considered is a relic of epistemological naïveté. The Christian story “claims no foundation for the truth of Christianity beyond the compelling vision of the story and of the vision it sustains.”

There is no question of apologetics, of natural law, of rational persuasion, of any marriage of reason and faith -- all that's left is the aesthetic appeal of Christianity.

There is no denying that "the heart has its reasons, which reason knows nothing of" (Pascal); that converts have been won over by the beauty of Christianity, moved by the witness of its martyrs and the lives of its saints. And I can certainly get behind people like Gregory Wolfe, and his belief that "beauty will save the world" -- that art, literature and the fruits of imagination can become the wellsprings to cultural renewal, providing enrichment to public discourse and cultivating a receptiveness towards the truth where ideology and politics cannot. But Radical Orthodoxy doesn't appear to be proclaiming just that -- rather, it gives up on truth and reason altogether. Mulcahy again:

RO vigourously sets itself to reclaim a comprehensive, Christ-centred vision. But such a vision may also invite self deception. Its ostensible discrediting of correspondence theories of truth is, I would suggest, no more than apparent. Our personal vision may be tested against publicly known realities, against the truth not only of Scripture, ecclesial authority, and tradition, but also of wisdom and learning wherever these are to be found. Such an openness to truth cannot consist in collapsing everything into the doctrine of the incarnation, or into Christ’s Eucharistic presence. If it is to serve the world, and even if it is to save the world, doctrine must live with the distinctions between grace and nature, even if it refines them in new ways. If “everything is grace,” as RO would understand it, then Christianity departs for an enclave which must become ever more remote. If, on the other hand, “not everything is grace,” if there is room for the notion of pure nature, then there are vast possibilities for communication between Church and world, and between faith and all human disciplines—to the benefit of all concerned. Methodological arrogance is hardly a necessary quality of a genuinely incarnational theology.

* * *

Returning finally to the topic of Aquinas, Radical Orthodoxy purportedly adopts and expounds upon De Lubac's account of Thomism. However, if recent studies have indicated that De Lubac's understanding of Aquinas was found to be wanting, this defect is apparently by no means an impediment to Radical Orthodoxy. While Maculhy finds that "Milbank has not yet written in any detailed way on the history of Thomism, nor has he been engaged in a close reading of Thomistic texts", this has not deterred Milbank from co-authoring a book with Catherine Pitstock on Truth and Aquinas in which they expound on Aquinas' "theory of knowledge."

The impression is clearly given that for Mulcahy -- and I would imagine for most anybody who adheres to prevailing norms of academic scholarship, rational discourse and validation -- the very act of reading Milbank is itself a recipe for exasperation. Consider the following:

The word "interpretation" must be emphasised and explained when it comes to Milbank’s treatment of Aquinas. As one who rejects "accepted secular standards of scientific truth or normative rationality" and denies that truth is a correspondence between the intellect and extra-mental reality, Milbank insists that "the point [of theology] is not to represent ... externality, but just to join in its occurrence; not to know, but to intervene, originate." Accordingly, his recourse to Aquinas is not a work of exegesis, but a project of creative expression: “exegesis is easy; it is interpretation that is difficult, and Aquinas, more than most thinkers, requires interpretation." This explains why Milbank holds that, even if the actual text of St Thomas "appear[s] incontrovertibly to refute my reading," that reading itself should not be subjected to conventional scholarly critique. ...

This ostensibly post-modern approach to sources has predictably occasioned intense criticism. Informed scholars have described Radical Orthodoxy’s interpretations as "gnostic idealism," "blithely imprecise, ideologically driven historical revisionism," "free-floating, self-perpetuating insularity", "opaque [sentences] drifting [in] conceptual murkiness", "sophistical legerdemain," "blatant misreading ... that ignores the ordinary canons of scholarly enquiry," and "[not] just wrong, [but] laughable, though not amusing." Milbank’s vague and sometimes even inaccurate footnotes do not help his cause.

In Milbank’s defence, one can say only that RO had disclaimed the canons of scholarly objectivity and verifiable accuracy right from the beginning. Radical Orthodoxy sets itself to challenge all settled theological opinion, and pretends no dialogical relationship with other views or types of rationality. When considering Milbank’s interpretation of St Thomas, the best approach, one might suggest, is to recognise it as something akin to an interpretive dance. It displays an inherently subjective approach, and, in effect, purports to be nothing else. Scholarship of an objective kind must be sought elsewhere.

Aquinas's Notion of Pure Nature and the Christian Integralism of Henri de Lubac

As noted by Edward Feser, "there is a growing wave of reaction against the Nouvelle Theologie’s reaction against the tradition of the commentators" -- specifically the proposal that "the centuries-old tradition of Aquinas commentators, and the Neo-Scholastics in particular, somehow all got Aquinas wrong on questions of nature and grace, natural and supernatural."

Among such recently published texts are:

• The Natural Desire to See God According to St. Thomas and His Interpreters, by Lawrence Feingold. Catholic University of America Press, 2nd. Edition, (October 2004)
• Natura Pura: On the Recovery of Nature in the Doctrine of Grace, by Steven A. Long. Fordham University Press, (April 2010).
• Praeambula Fidei: Thomism And the God of the Philosophers, by Ralph McInerney. Catholic University of America Press. (2006)
• Aquinas's Notion of Pure Nature and the Christian Integralism of Henry de Lubac, by Bernard Mulcahy, O.P. (Peter Lang International Academic Publishers. (April 2011).
• Surnaturel: A Controversy at the Heart of Twentieth-Century Thomistic Thought, edited by Serge-Thomas Bonino. The Catholic University of America Press (July 1, 2007).

I have read and praised McInerney's book elsewhere on this blog -- one of the first of its kind and narrow in scope (focusing specifically on Etienne Gilson and De Lubac's error-ridden interpretation and criticism of Cajetan and Aquinas. My father gifted Feingold's Natural Desire to See God to me on my birthday. Comprehensive in scope and exhaustive in detail, it will likely take several years for me to digest but it is clearly an invaluable resource in this whole debate. Steven A. Long's shorter treatment is on my "to read" list (particularly interesting as it reportedly examines the work of Joseph Ratzinger / Pope Benedict XVI on the topic). Surnatural, likewise on my "to read" list is a collection of various papers pro and con, following a symposium held in 2000 on the controversy of de Lubac's surnaturel.

Having just completed my reading, I wish to commend Mulcahy's Aquinas's Notion of Pure Nature and the Christian Integralism of Henry de Lubac, the publication of his doctoral thesis under the title "Not Everything is Grace" for the Australian Catholic University (full text of which can be found here). Here is the abstract:

Henri de Lubac argues that, in early modern times, a pernicious concept began to become commonplace in Roman Catholic theology: this concept is “pure nature.” Pure nature is human nature, considered without reference to grace or to the supernatural destiny of personal union with God. Further, de Lubac argues that Catholic theology, in assimilating this idea, has departed from the sound tradition represented by St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas. He holds that the notion of pure nature leads inevitably to the self-exclusion of Christianity from the affairs of the world -- when, in fact, the light of the Gospel ought to be shed on all aspects of human existence.

This dissertation tests de Lubac’s thesis concerning the history of the idea of pure nature, showing that this notion is not, in fact, a modern novelty. This study examines the role of the idea of pure nature in the Bible and early Church, in the theology of Thomas Aquinas, in the early modern Jansenist controversy, in the theology of Henri de Lubac, and in the theology of the contemporary Radical Orthodoxy movement, paying particular attention to the historical circumstances which made the repudiation of “pure nature” attractive.

Today, some theologians follow de Lubac in contending that Catholic doctrine must eschew the idea of pure nature in order to resist secularism and maintain Christianity’s relevance to all aspects of human life. This dissertation contends that the idea of pure nature is not only traditional, but necessary for Christian theology. It argues that a Christian “integralism” which refuses to prescind from grace when considering nature can do justice neither to nature nor to grace.

Further review by Reinhard Hutter, Duke Divinity School:

Characterized by acuity of analysis, fairness of judgment, and lucidity of thought and style, Matthew Bernard Mulcahy’s ‘Not Everything Is Grace’ is an indispensable reading for any serious student of theology with an interest in the recent renewal of the debate over ‘nature and grace’ and especially the idea of a ‘pure nature’.

Mulcahy convincingly demonstrates first that theologians of the patristic era were well familiar with a human nature and a common final human discernible apart from revelation and grace and, secondly and more extensively, that the idea, though not the term, of pure nature plays a significant role in the writings of Thomas Aquinas. Furthermore, by showing that Henri de Lubac’s characterizations of Baianism and Jansenism occluded the political and historical contexts and impacts of these theological movements, Mulcahy successfully questions Henri de Lubac’s familiar, but historically unsubstantiated claim, that the modern scholastic use of ‘pure nature’ facilitated the rise of modern secularism and atheism.

Last but not least, Mulcahy offers an accurate and illuminating reading of the most recent radicalization of de Lubac’s vision into a comprehensive theological integralism - Radical Orthodoxy. Mulcahy’s perspicuous analysis of its central tenets constitutes a critique that is as charitable as it is devastating. Mulcahy makes a powerful case for the indispensability of the idea of pure nature for a Catholic theology that wants to account for the full scope of the complexity of creaturely existence. This is a ‘must’ on the reading list for every class that tackles the ‘nature-grace-debate’ in the 20th century. Its clarity and even-handedness make it a welcome contribution to a complicated and often heated debate. Tolle, lege!