Showing posts with label scientiae. Show all posts
Showing posts with label scientiae. Show all posts

Monday, June 06, 2016

Ressourcement Theology and Modern Philosophy

I think it is correct to say that part of the project of the ressourcement theologians was to do what they could to make use of, if not adapt, modern philosophy to the expression of Christian teaching, in addition to returning to sacred scripture and the Church Fathers as sources of Christian teaching. How successful was their effort in this regard? Fr. Louis Bouyer made use of phenomenology, which might seemed to be opposed to Thomism and its brand of realism, but it seems to me that Fr. Bouyer's phenomenological writing in his theology works can be understood as a part of dialectic or cultural anthropology or human psychology. What about the use of philosophy by other ressourcement theologians.

Sunday, April 29, 2012

James Chastek, Two truths in theology and history

Per impossibile, what if there were rock-solid evidence that Christ didn't rise from the dead? I just find the hypothetical question posed rather baffling. "Assume we have, say, rock solid evidence that Pilate was a no-nonsense judge, with no scruples about killing anyone for the sake of order (I’ve heard historians modify or contest this, but assume that it is firmly established)."

What what the rock solid evidence be? Some record, some testimony, plus some reasoning on the part of the historian. Can a historian ever capture the full character or personality of a historical person? It is questionable whether we can even do that with respect to the people we "know."

Mr. Chastek writes at the end:

The Christian can point to the fact that it is possible that the accounts are true, but is it necessary that he be able to transmute possibility into a historically reasonable claim? So do we have some sort of “two truths” doctrine here? In fact, if historical truth is what the theologian calls a probable opinion, and the theologian can admit that some historical facts need not be the ones that are most probable given the historical evidence we have, is there even a tension between the two truths? Why can’t something that is in fact false be what is most probable given the historical evidence that we have?

Any evidence we have is some sort of testimony and subjected to criteria pertaining to trustworthiness/credibility. If history cannot attain the level of certitude necessary for a science, then this isn't really a problem of "two truths, " is it? Can we say that the history given within Sacred Scripture is more reliable than anything constructed by human historians working without the aid of the Holy Spirit? Why not? In addition, isn't the testimony of the authors of Sacred Scripture one more historical source that must be taken into consideration by the secular historian? On what a priori basis can he exclude it as being unreliable?