Eirenikon: Patriarchal and Synodal Encyclical On the Sunday of Orthodoxy

Do the Orthodox have ecclesiastical or canonical problems with religious orders being placed under the direct jurisdiction of the pope?

James Chastek: Garrigou Lagrange-on discussing the Trinity

Insight Scoop: "In Memory of Ralph McInerny" by Charles E. Rice

Byzantine, Texas: Another report from the Met. Kallistos lecture tour

An important aspect of how authority is practiced in the Church, both in the East and the West, is the concept of “protos”, which means “first”. The Church is hierarchical, and therefore in every grouping in the Church, there must be a “protos”. For example, the bishop is the “protos” of his diocese. The Patriarch is “protos” among the bishops in his patriarchy. The pope is “protos” among all the bishops in the universal Church. Both Catholics and Orthodox accept this structure. But what does it mean to be “protos”? How is that role exercised? Metropolitan Kallistos pointed out Apostolic Canon 34 as a model for the role of “protos” in the Church. Apostolic Canon 34 states,

The bishops of every nation must acknowledge him who is first among them and account him as their head, and do nothing of consequence without his consent…but neither let him (who is head) do anything without the consent of all.

It should be obvious that the problem arises from the second part of that Canon. In fact, this appears to be in direct conflict with Vatican I, which states that “definitions of the Roman pontiff are of themselves, and not by the consent of the church, irreformable”. But Metropolitan Kallistos is hopeful that this Canon will be a way in which the Church can find a mutually agreeable means for the pope to practice universal primacy.

(Originally posted at the blog of Eric Sammons.)

Sedevacantism

Let us assume the sedevacantist position is correct -- would the rest of the Catholic bishops, by recognizing a false bishop of Rome, be putting themselves outside of the Church? Most, if not all, sincerely believe that he is the pope, and there are ways to make sure he has been validly elected. (Maybe this is a moot point, since many sedevacantists believe that the Catholic bishops are outside of the Church because they are heretics?)

(I haven't had to think about sedevacantism too much or study the arguments of sedevacantists up until now, but I recently became acquainted with a sedevacantist through FB. I am not sure how to proceed with that relationship.)

Some Sedevantists:
SSPV
Aquinas Catholic Website
Gerry Matatics
Traditional Latin Mass Resources

Responses:
SSPX - Sedevacantism
Dominique Boulet, SSPX
Concerning a Sedevacantist Thesis
Br. André Marie of St. Benedict Center
CAI

Via Joe Carter at First Things -- Reno on Theology and Apologetics

The archive for the CUA Philosophy lectures is missing. I tried to send a message informing those who manage the website of the error, but I think I got another error message instead. I hope this page is restored -- there is one lecture by Alasdair MacIntyre and another by John Wippel that I want to watch.

Metropolitan KALLISTOS Ware Salvation in Christ - The Orthodox Approach -Lecture

Is Belief in Free Will Unscientific “Vitalism?” by Wesley J. Smith

James Chastek, Determination by Habit:

Though this can be taken in more than one way, one literal reading is that “Servant of justice” is said only “because of the infirmity of your flesh”. Servitude is properly only of evil habits; good habits are precisely what constitute liberty and freedom. The fatal mistake of habits is to see the slavery and bondage of the habits we know best as characteristic of all human habits. This is yet another way in which we confuse what is most known to us with what is most knowable in itself.

Stephen M. Barr, The End of Intelligent Design?
(via Rod Dreher)

The latest issue of Living Tradition to be uploaded: Regarding Pope Benedict XVI's Address on Biblical Exegesis and Theology of 14 October 2008

Papal Address to Pontifical Academy for Life

Papal Address to Pontifical Academy for Life

"God Loves Every Human Being in a Unique and Profound Way"


VATICAN CITY, FEB. 14, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI gave Saturday in an audience with members of the Pontifical Academy for Life who gathered in Rome for a general assembly on the topic of bioethics and natural law.

* * *

Dear brothers in the Episcopate and in the Priesthood,
Illustrious members of the "Pontificia Academia Pro Vita,"

Kind Ladies and Gentlemen!

I am glad to cordially welcome and greet you on the occasion of the general assembly of the Pontifical Academy for Life, called to reflect on themes pertaining to the relationship between bioethics and the natural moral law, which appear evermore relevant in the present context because of the continual development in the scientific sphere. I address a special greeting to Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of this academy, thanking him for the courteous words that he wanted to address to me in the name of those present. I would also like to extend my personal thanks to each of you for the precious and irreplaceable work that you do on behalf of life in various contexts.

The issues that revolve around the theme of bioethics allow us to confirm how much these underlying questions in the first place pose the "anthropological question." As I state in my last encyclical letter, "Caritas in Veritate:" "A particularly crucial battleground in today's cultural struggle between the absolutism of technology and human moral responsibility is the field of bioethics, where the very possibility of integral human development is radically called into question. In this most delicate and critical area, the fundamental question asserts itself force-fully: is man the product of his own labors or does he depend on God? Scientific discoveries in this field and the possibilities of technological intervention seem so advanced as to force a choice between two types of reasoning: reason open to transcendence or reason closed within immanence" (no. 74).

Before such questions, which touch in such a decisive manner human life in its perennial tension between immanence and transcendence, and which have great relevance for the culture of future generations, it is necessary to create a holistic pedagogical project that permits us to confront these issues in a positive, balanced and constructive vision, above all in the relationship between faith and reason. The questions of bioethics often place the reminder of the dignity of the person in the foreground. This dignity is a fundamental principle that the faith in Jesus Christ crucified and risen has always defended, above all when it is ignored in regard to the humblest and most vulnerable persons: God loves every human being in a unique and profound way. Bioethics, like every discipline, needs a reminder able to guarantee a consistent understanding of ethical questions that, inevitably, emerge before possible interpretive conflicts. In such a space a normative recall to the natural moral law presents itself. The recognition of human dignity, in fact, as an inalienable right first finds its basis in that law not written by human hand but inscribed by God the Creator in the heart of man. Every juridical order is called to recognize this right as inviolable and every single person must respect and promote it (cf. "Catechism of the Catholic Church," nos. 1954-1960).

Without the foundational principle of human dignity it would be difficult to find a source for the rights of the person and the impossible to arrive at an ethical judgment if the face of the conquests of science that intervene directly in human life. It is thus necessary to repeat with firmness that an understanding of human dignity does not depend on scientific progress, the gradual formation of human life or facile pietism before exceptional situations. When respect for the dignity of the person is invoked it is fundamental that it be complete, total and with no strings attached, except for those of understanding oneself to be before a human life. Of course, there is development in human life and the horizon of the investigation of science and bioethics is open, but it must be reaffirmed that when it is a matter of areas relating to the human being, scientists can never think that what they have is only inanimate matter capable of manipulation in their hands. Indeed, from the very first moment, the life of man is characterized as "human life" and therefore always a bearer -- everywhere and despite everything -- of its own dignity (cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, "Instruction 'Dignitas Personae' on Certain Bioethical Questions," no. 5). Without this understanding, we would always be in danger of an instrumental use of science with the inevitable consequence of easily ceding to the arbitrary, to discrimination and to the strongest economic interest.

Joining bioethics and natural moral law permits the best confirmation of the necessary and unavoidable reminder of the dignity that human life intrinsically possesses from its first instant to its natural end. But in the contemporary context, while a just reminder about the rights that guarantee dignity to the person is emerging with ever greater insistence, one notes that such rights are not always recognized in the natural development of human life and in the stages of its greatest fragility. A similar contradiction makes evident the task to be assumed in different spheres of society and culture to ensure that human life always be seen as the inalienable subject of rights and never as an object subjugated to the will of the strongest.

History has shown us how dangerous and deleterious a state can be that proceeds to legislate on questions that touch the person and society while pretending itself to be the source and principle of ethics. Without universal principles that permit a common denominator for the whole of humanity the danger of a relativistic drift at the legislative level is not at all something should be underestimated (cf. "Catechism of the Catholic Church," no. 1959). The natural moral law, strong in its universal character, allows us to avert such a danger and above all offers to the legislator the guarantee for an authentic respect of both the person and the entire created order. It is the catalyzing source of consensus among persons of different cultures and religions and allows them to transcend their differences since it affirms the existence of an order impressed in nature by the Creator and recognized as an instance of true rational ethical judgment to pursue good and avoid evil. The natural moral law "belongs to the great heritage of human wisdom. Revelation, with its light, has contributed to further purifying and developing it" (John Paul II, Address to the Plenary Assembly of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, February 6, 2004).

Illustrious members of the Pontifical Academy for Life, in the present context your task appears more and more delicate and difficult, but the growing sensitivity in regard to human life is an encouragement to continue, with ever greater spirit and courage, in this important service to life and the education of future generations in the evangelical values. I hope that all of you will continue to study and research so that the work of promoting and defending life be ever more effective and fruitful. I accompany you with the apostolic blessing, which I gladly extend to those who share this daily task with you.

[Translation by Joseph G. Trabbic]

Fr. Rhonheimer persists.

From The Tablet:

The truth about condoms
Martin Rhonheimer


Church leaders have caused a furore by suggesting that even the HIV-infected should avoid condoms. But this is not church teaching, says a leading moral philosopher

Most people are convinced that an HIV-infected person who has sex should use a condom to protect his partner from infection. Whatever one may think about a promiscuous lifestyle, about homosexual acts or prostitution, that person acts at least with a sense of responsibility in trying to avoid transmitting his infection to others.

It is commonly believed that the Catholic Church does not support such a view. As a BBC Panorama programme recently suggested, the Church is thought to teach that sexually active homosexuals and prostitutes should refrain from condoms because condoms are ?intrinsically evil? (The Tablet, 26 June). Many Catholics also believe this. One of them is Hugh Henry, education officer of the Linacre Centre in London, who told Austen Ivereigh in last week?s Tablet that the use of a condom, even exclusively to prevent infection of one?s sexual partner, ?fails to honour the fertile structure that marital acts must have, cannot constitute mutual and complete personal self-giving and thus violates the Sixth Commandment?.

But this is not a teaching of the Catholic Church. There is no official magisterial teaching either about condoms, or about anti-ovulatory pills or diaphragms. Condoms cannot be intrinsically evil, only human acts; condoms are not human acts, but things. What the Catholic Church has clearly taught to be ?intrinsically evil? is a specific kind of human act, defined by Paul VI in his encyclical Humanae Vitae, and later included in No. 2370 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, as an ?action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible?.

Contraception, as a specific kind of human act, includes two elements: the will to engage in sexual acts and the intention of rendering procreation impossible. A contraceptive act therefore embodies a contraceptive choice. As I put it in an article in the Linacre Quarterly in 1989, ?a contraceptive choice is the choice of an act that prevents freely consented performances of sexual intercourse, which are foreseen to have procreative consequences, from having these consequences, and which is a choice made just for this reason.?

This is why contraception, regarded as a human act qualified as ?intrinsically evil? or disordered, is not determined by what is happening on the physical level; it makes no difference whether one prevents sexual intercourse from being fertile by taking the Pill or by interrupting it in an onanistic way. The above definition also disregards the differentiation between ?doing? and ?refraining from doing?, because coitus interruptus is a kind of ? at least partial ? refraining.

The definition of the contraceptive act does not therefore apply to using contraceptives to prevent possible procreative consequences of foreseen rape; in that circumstance the raped person does not choose to engage in sexual intercourse or to prevent a possible consequence of her own sexual behaviour but is simply defending herself from an aggression on her own body and its undesirable consequences. A woman athlete taking part in the Olympic Games who takes an anti-ovulatory pill to prevent menstruation is not doing ?contraception? either, because there is no simultaneous intention of engaging in sexual intercourse.

The teaching of the Church is not about condoms or similar physical or chemical devices, but about marital love and the essentially marital meaning of human sexuality. It affirms that, if married people have a serious reason not to have children, they should modify their sexual behaviour by ? at least periodic ? abstinence from sexual acts. To avoid destroying both the unitive and the procreative meaning of sexual acts and therefore the fullness of mutual self-giving, they must not prevent the sexual act from being fertile while carrying on having sex.

But what of promiscuous people, sexually active homosexuals, and prostitutes? What the Catholic Church teaches them is simply that they should not be promiscuous, but faithful to one single sexual partner; that prostitution is a behaviour which gravely violates human dignity, mainly the dignity of the woman, and therefore should not be engaged in; and that homosexuals, as all other people, are children of God and loved by him as everybody else is, but that they should live in continence like any other unmarried person.

But if they ignore this teaching, and are at risk from HIV, should they use condoms to prevent infection? The moral norm condemning contraception as intrinsically evil does not apply to these cases. Nor can there be church teaching about this; it would be simply nonsensical to establish moral norms for intrinsically immoral types of behaviour. Should the Church teach that a rapist must never use a condom because otherwise he would additionally to the sin of rape fail to respect ?mutual and complete personal self-giving and thus violate the Sixth Commandment?? Of course not.

What do I, as a Catholic priest, tell Aids-infected promiscuous people or homosex-uals who are using condoms? I will try to help them to live an upright and well-ordered sexual life. But I will not tell them not to use condoms. I simply will not talk to them about this and assume that if they choose to have sex they will at least keep a sense of responsibility. With such an attitude I fully respect the Catholic Church?s teaching on contraception.

This is not a plea for ?exceptions? to the norm prohibiting contraception. The norm about contraception applies without exception; the contraceptive choice is intrinsically evil. But it obviously applies only to contraceptive acts, as defined by Humanae Vitae, which embody a contraceptive choice. Not every act in which a device is used which from a purely physical point of view is ?contraceptive?, is from a moral point of view a contraceptive act falling under the norm taught by Humanae Vitae.

Equally, a married man who is HIV-infected and uses the condom to protect his wife from infection is not acting to render procreation impossible, but to prevent infection. If conception is prevented, this will be an ? unintentional ? side-effect and will not therefore shape the moral meaning of the act as a contraceptive act. There may be other reasons to warn against the use of a condom in such a case, or to advise total continence, but these will not be because of the Church?s teaching on contraception but for pastoral or simply prudential reasons ? the risk, for example, of the condom not working. Of course, this last argument does not apply to promiscuous people, because even if condoms do not always work, their use will help to reduce the evil consequences of morally evil behaviour.

Stopping the worldwide Aids epidemic is not a question about the morality of using condoms, but about how to effectively prevent people from causing the disastrous consequences of their immoral sexual behaviour. Pope John Paul II has repeatedly urged that the promotion of the use of condoms is not a solution to this problem because he holds that it does not resolve the moral problem of promiscuity. Whether, generally, campaigns promoting condoms encourage risky behaviour and make the Aids pandemic worse is a question of statistical evidence which is not yet easily available. That it reduces transmission rates, in the short term, among highly infective groups like prostitutes and homosexuals is impossible to deny. Whether it may decrease infection rates among ?sexually liberated? promiscuous populations or, on the contrary, encourage risky behaviour, depends on many factors.

In African countries condom-based anti-Aids campaigns are generally ineffective, partly because for an African man his manliness is expressed by making as many children as possible. For him, condoms convert sex into a meaningless activity. Which is why ? and this is strong evidence in favour of the Pope?s argument ? among the few effective programmes in Africa has been the Ugandan one. Although it does not exclude condoms, it encourages a positive change in sexual behaviour (fidelity and abstinence), unlike condom campaigns, which contribute to obscuring or even destroying the meaning of human love.

Campaigns to promote abstinence and fidelity are certainly and ultimately the only effective long-term remedy to combat Aids. So there is no reason for the Church to consider the campaigns promoting condoms as helpful for the future of human society. But nor can the Church possibly teach that people engaged in immoral lifestyles should avoid them.

He hasn't changed his mind--when will a Dominican give a response. See this post for a link to Fr. Rhonheimer's previous piece for The Tablet.

James Chastek, What a consideration of the divine names tells us about what is logical, knowable, conceivable, etc.

In his discussion of the divine names in the Scriptum (at the beginning of book I, d. 22), St. Thomas quotes Dionysius approvingly saying that when we speak of God, we can affirm the same thing we deny. This is particularly striking since St. Thomas defines a contradiction as affirming and denying the same thing. The saving distinction in the divine names is (as it always is in St. Thomas) the distinction between the way of signifying and the thing signified (the modus significandi and the res significativa). When we affirm the thing signified, we still must deny the mode of signifying. When said like this, however, we can easily lose sight of just how close to contradiction our speech about God is. While there is nothing odd or remarkable about our concepts grasping a thing imperfectly (to say “a platypus is an animal” is certainly a very imperfect grasp of what it is), when we affirm something of God, or concepts are so imperfect that we must then also turn around and show how we could deny it.

One of St. Thomas’s preferred objections to the possibility of naming God (and therefore knowing God in this life) is an enumeration of the deficiencies of possible names. Nouns signify a supposit with a formal quality ( a “this” that is such and such) but God is not such that there is some supposit modified by a formal quality; verbs and participles signify with time, but God is not a temporal being; pronouns either stand for something we can point to (“this” or “that”) or for some noun, but the deficiencies of nouns have already been spoken of, and the divine nature is not something one points to. On the one hand, St. Thomas has an easy solution to all these problems: the mode of signifying is not the same as the mode of existing. What the sign requires will not always be the same on the side of the thing. One example that makes this distinction particularly clear occurs when St. Thomas responds to a claim that a noun names “what subsists in itself”. He responds saying that the noun signifies what subsists in itself so far as it is a subject of predication. So taken, logical second intentions or even the noun “nothing” signify something that subsists. Obviously, to subsist in the order of signs does not require subsistence in reality; and so neither does composition in the order of signs, nor temporal existence in the order of signs, nor being pointed to in the order of signs require an identical reality on the side of the thing. St. Thomas will also go through each of the given parts of speech and explain how they can be understood to speak of divine reality: while a noun cannot name a composition of supposit and form composed in God, it can name a supposit with a form so far as form is taken a principle of knowledge. Again, while a pronoun cannot name what is pointed to by the finger, it can name what is pointed to by argument.

That said, composition, temporality, and being pointed to all “come along with” the word we are using. They reflect the sort of existence that our speech is proportioned to. Just as we must reject the sort of existence proportionate to our minds when we think of God, we must negate something that always comes along with the speech we use to speak of him. In this sense, we must always deny what we affirm of God (though we need not always affirm what we deny: if we say “God is not a body”, we don’t have to turn around and look for a way in which he is one.) This happens in a particularly remarkable way when we consider the division of certain words into the concrete and the abstract. A concrete term like “wise” is proportioned to speaking of something that is diverse from and composed with a subject that differs from it. So far as it involves this proportion, we must negate that God is wise; but we must also affirm the simple (and therefore abstract) quality “wisdom”. God is wisdom so far as wisdom bespeaks sheer simplicity- and even so far as wisdom bespeaks something that cannot be pointed out by the finger. One can pray to wisdom, if taken in this way.

Given St. Thomas’s principles, in the measure that we speak about anything that is not proportioned to what we understand first, we will have to make distinctions between what we are led to by the mode of signifying and knowing, and what is really the case for the reality in question. This bandwidth of things we are attuned to is vanishingly small. There is really no proportion at all between the sense-intelligible reality that we are proportioned to and the intelligible reality we are only faintly aware of in this life. We must begin, of course, with sense-intelligible reality, but the more we attain to the principles of this reality, both in natural science and metaphysics, the more we become aware of the need to make distinctions in our speech and thinking in order to accurately describe the principles we attain to. How can God act in time without being temporal? How can a light wave wave though nothing is waving? What is the aether of magnetic fields? All these difficulties are created by the way we think and signify.

The more we want to speak of the principles of things, the more we need to be very wary of what it means for them to be “logical”. Whether we are talking about God, subatomic particles, prime matter, the fourth dimension, or the human intellect, we need to be clear that “to be logical” will involve, at some point, negating what we have just affirmed. If “logical” means “what is proportioned to our intellect”, then the whole point of science (which reaches to profound and foundational causes) is to get to non-logical reality. As science and learning advances, we need to turn to our very tools of knowing and explain precisely how they are not adequate, and how they can be used to speak of and understand what exceeds the bandwidth of reality we are attuned to. Notice that this is the opposite of throwing up our hands and shouting “mystery!” The whole point is to give a precise account of how the conceptswe first form can be used as principles to explain what is not proportioned to them. This is particularly important, since so far as “mystery” means whatever exceeds what our minds are proportioned to, then the portion of reality that is not mysterious is so small that it could be ignored, just as we could ignore the amount of mass that a mountain loses when a bird’s wing brushes against it. If we want to get to what is most of all real, “being logical” will have to involve a negation of what is first of all logical to us. This does not mean we need to start saying random things, or writing poetry, or meditating in order to attain the real, it means that we have to recognize what our concepts are proportioned to in order to see more clearly how they can be used to speak of what exceeds them or falls short of their reality. All that we have said here about “logical” can be equally said of “to be conceivable” or “to be knowable” or “to be coherent” or “to be verifiable”.

So the question of the divine names awakens us to the need to understand how our knowing is first of all proportioned to something, and that this is what we first mean by logical, conceivable, knowable, verifiable. Science advances by breaking outside of these proportionate limits to things that at first blush might be called “illogical” (though this is a poor name, since it bespeaks a lack). The tool by which we mark these breaks is analogous naming. We call time a fourth dimension though it is certainly not what we first mean by a dimension; we say God exists and is intelligent though he does not have what we first call existence or intelligence. The methods of going past what is proportionate to us are not the same in both cases, but our need to mark an advance by analogous naming is the same in both cases.

At the limit of what is disproportionate to our intellect, one finds the mysteries of the faith: the Trinity and Incarnation. It must be stressed that these are limiting cases- they are not the first such cases. Speaking about the mysteries of the faith requires us to make some new distinctions in the tools which we use to know, but they are not the first times we need to make such distinctions. The logical problem of the Trinity, or the problem of its conceivability, is the clearest and most preeminent problem of knowability and conceivability, but it is not the only such problem. Speaking of God existing, or light waving, or the soul knowing presents small-scale versions of the same sort of problem. In all these, the words or concepts themselves will exert a distorting influence on the reality itself, and this distorting influence must be taken into account and corrected against. If we ask whether any of these things are knowable or conceivable without taking this need for correction into account, or as though there was only one concept involved here, we will do a great deal of damage.

Papal Greeting to Lutheran Delegation

Papal Greeting to Lutheran Delegation

"A Spiritual Ecumenism Should Be Grounded in Ardent Prayer"


VATICAN CITY, FEB. 10, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is the greeting given by Benedict XVI today to the Lutheran Bishop Mark Hanson and the delegation accompanying him at the general audience in Paul VI Hall.

* * *

Distinguished Friends,

I am pleased to greet Bishop Mark Hanson and all of you present here today for this ecumenical visit.

Since the beginning of my Pontificate, I have been encouraged that relations between Catholics and Lutherans have continued to grow, especially at the level of practical collaboration in the service of the Gospel. In his Encyclical Letter "Ut Unum Sint," my beloved predecessor Pope John Paul II described our relationship as "brotherhood rediscovered" (No. 41). I deeply hope that the continuing Lutheran-Catholic dialogue both in the United States of America and at the international level will help to build upon the agreements reached so far. An important remaining task will be to harvest the results of the Lutheran-Catholic dialogue that so promisingly started after the Second Vatican Council. To build on what has been achieved together since that time, a spiritual ecumenism should be grounded in ardent prayer and in conversion to Christ, the source of grace and truth. May the Lord help us to treasure what has been accomplished so far, to guard it with care, and to foster its development.

I conclude by renewing the wish expressed by my predecessor, during whose Pontificate so much was accomplished on the road to full visible unity among Christians, when he said to a similar delegation from the Lutheran Church in America: "You are most welcome here. Let us rejoice that an encounter such as this can take place. Let us resolve to be open to the Lord so that he can use this meeting for his purposes, to bring about the unity that he desires. Thank you for the efforts you are making for full unity in faith and charity" (Address to the Bishops of the Lutheran Church in America, 26 September 1985).

Upon you and all those entrusted to your pastoral care, I cordially invoke the abundant blessings of Almighty God.

© Copyright 2010 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Ite ad Thomam: Scholasticism as Modern Philosophy

In general outline, this division of the history of philosophy is convenient insofar as it accurately represents six general trends in doing philosophy. For example, the way in which the 'ancients' did philosophy is quite distinct from that of the medievals, and medieval philosophy is quite different from the philosophy of Descartes, Locke, and Kant.


But this division also has its problems, particularly in its understanding of the relationship between Scholasticism and Modern Philosophy. It gives the impression that Scholasticism lasted only from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. It excludes Scholasticism altogether from Modern Philosophy... as if Scholasticism were an obsolete medieval thing that was only revived by some right-wing papists of the Twentieth Century. It makes you believe that the Franciscans, Dominicans, Carmelites and Jesuits were happily doing their scholastic disputations until they ran out of gas, and then came Descartes and ended the whole thing with his cogito... as if Modern Philosophy got started and Scholasticism completely disappeared. Hence, Modern Philosophy is portrayed as essentially non-scholastic (or anti-scholastic).


This conception of Modern Philosophy is utterly flawed. This is a case where history is completely written by the victors. The philosophy that was taught during this period in the universities was Scholasticism. Hence the name: 'scholas-tic', the philosophy of the schools (of the scholas). Descartes did not end Scholasticism. At no point during his life did Descartes change or even affect the way philosophy was done in the universities. In fact, none of the Empiricists and almost none of the Rationalists (with the sole exception of Wolff, who was himself a Scholastic Leibnitzian) ever taught at a university. They were literally amateurs. What we are being taught today as mainstream Early Modern Philosophy (Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, etc.) is really an afterthought of the Early Modern Period, a movement completely peripheral to what the professional scholars of the time were doing. No one at that time saw the thought of these men as being part of the mainstream academic philosophical thinking.

So who were the mainstream, professional scholars--the Scholastics--during the Early Modern Period? There were thousands, but the best known are: Báñez, Molina, John of St. Thomas, Suárez, Contenson, Gonet, De Lugo, the Salmanticenses and Complutenses, etc., etc. Although some of authors place these figures within the Renaissance period, nonetheless John of St. Thomas and Suárez were contemporaries of Descartes; and, in fact, De Lugo, Contenson, Gonet, the Salmanticenses (and the Salamanca school of economics) together with the Complutenses came a generation later. These men rightly belong to Descartes' period but they are typically either completely ignored by historians or dismissed as medieval remnants that do not deserve to be considered 'modern'.


And even much later, after the new philosophy of the Rationalists, Empiricists and Idealists made its way into secular and Protestant academia (Kant was the first to bring this amateur philosophy into the universities), Scholasticism was still being practiced and taught in Catholic universities. Billuart, De Rubeis, St. Alphonsus de Liguori, San Severino, Cornoldi, Kleutgen, etc. were all within a generation of Kant and thus rightly belong to the Later Modern Period.


And Scholasticism kept being taught in Catholic universities throughout the 19th and 20th Centuries. So how do anti-scholastic histories of philosophy deal with this point? They have interpreted the so-called Neo-Scholastic / Neo-Thomist movement as bearing a discontinuity with what they disparagingly call 'Barroque Thomism' (or Second Thomism). They portray it as a resurrection of Thomism, passing strictly from a completely defunct state to a vibrant Catholic trend in the late 19th Century thanks to Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Aeterni Patris, long after Descartes has put the last nail on the coffin of 'Barroque Scholasticism'. But in fact, 'Neo-Scholasticism' (which is really a misnomer because it was not really discontinuous with traditional scholasticism) was a 'revival' in the sense of giving Scholasticism more life, not in the sense of giving life to something that was dead. Pope Leo XIII's Aeterni Patris does not call for a resurrection of something that had been long defunct, but rather, for greater efforts to keep it going. "Neo-Scholasticism," then, is nothing other than Scholasticism as it regained vigor in the 19th-20th centuries. But it is given that name to make us think that it is something new. As the Catholic Encyclopedia's article on Thomas Zigliara states, "in some universities and seminaries, the teaching of St. Thomas had never been interrupted...." Even today, Scholasticism is not entirely dead, although we must fight to revive it once again.


It is due time for someone to write a history of philosophy that portrays things the way they really are: Scholasticism as a continuous whole that throughout modern times represented the mainstream mode of Catholic thought and that lasted from the time of St. Anselm up until today.

James Chastek, The reality of extension and Notes on what is res extensa?

Some discussion at Eirenikon of "The Role of the Bishop of Rome in the Communion of the Church in the First Millennium."

Edit. Discussion at the blog of Eric Sammons.