What it is the scholastic theology and who are the fools who despise?

Father Giovanni

— Thelogica —

WHAT IS THE THEOLOGY SCHOOL AND WHO ARE THE FOOLS who despise?

.

Well, the enemies of scholastic theology are those naughty adults become, which now they teach in many Catholic and Protestant Theological Faculty, and all those presumptuous, that, from their narrow views or their revolutionary dreams, loftily show contempt, now with coarse language, Now with Byzantine terms, for scholastic theology, considering it a tangled succession, uncritical and full of prejudices and legends, abstract and empty theories, incomprehensible, vane, unnecessarily thin, overcome, sterile controversy, without development, no historical sense, alien to the interests and way of speaking of men of their time.

.

.

Author
Giovanni Cavalcoli, o.p..

.

PDF print format article

.

.

It is a frequent prejudice that scholastic theology It is a period in the history of Catholic theology now closed, possibly with Vatican II, that would have given rise to a new theology called by various names: "transcendental", "Narrative", «kerygmatica», "Existential" and others. Others speak generically of theology "modern", which uses the so-called "modern philosophy" founded by Descartes. They are the modernists. They already at the time of St. Pius X supported this thesis, judging scholastic theology as "ridiculous system long since gone" [cf. WHO]. Pio XII, in the encyclical The human race, disapproves of "contempt of scholastic theology", leading to "neglect and reject or deprived of their value concepts and expressions, that people of uncommon talent and holiness, under the supervision of the sacred Magisterium and not without illumination and guidance of the Holy Spirit, have been several times with secular work found and perfected for ever more accurately express the truths of faith " [cf. WHO].

.

The expression "scholastic theology", so, It is not just a historical category, but a spirit perennial category, a category theoretical or epistemological, which simply means what he says the word: the theology that teaching and learning in schools, where this term means exactly what the school is commonly understood: public institution or private educational and training, aimed systematically and methodically to communication and learning of knowledge or science. The instructor is the teacher or the teacher and the apprentice is the disciple, schoolchild or student. Please note that as a foolish contempt for scholastic theology, equally foolish is the contempt for the neo-scholastic theology, expression devised by Catholic theologians of the last century, tied at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, who founded the Journal of Philosophy neoscholasticism [cf. WHO], in response to the stress of the great Pope Leo XIII, that, with the encyclical Eternal Father [cf. WHO] the 1879, he promoted the revival of Thomism [1]. You can talk about the choice of the authors of their favorite, but there is no doubt that the expression itself is more than legitimate, signifying development capacity, of progress and its renewal of philosophy and theology school.

.

The scholastic theology is therefore one that can be and should rightly also call Theology "scientific", against a so-called "scientific theology", that would claim to use the concept of positivistic science instead of metaphysical science. Of course, It can cause problem to think that theology can be a science, because it implies evidence of principles, uniqueness of concepts, deduction and rational demonstration [2]. It should therefore be made clear that theology is not science in as it runs off the reason or rational evidence, because its principles and axioms of starting are the truths of faith; and yet it is science as syllogistically proceeds deductively or using convenience topics, for which the certainty of the conclusion of rationale, but express a matter of faith, whereby, if the conclusion is denied, it follows the denial of a dogma. For instance, who the hell is this divine mercy is not from the words of Christ, but it is a conclusion that can be drawn with any certainty, which it is not assurance of faith, although what Christ says about the damned is a truth of faith.

.

The theological intellect cultivation, But, both Aristotle and the Bible, It involves two degrees, the first subordinate to the second: the first is the science [GR. science Jewish there science]. In this position the intellect [GR. mind, eb. Bina Multiply], starting from the immediately intuited first principles of common sense, sets in motion the reason [GR. reason, eb. sure Cause], which, by means of the syllogism, reaches certain conclusion; from this rational degree intellect then rises to the second, what wisdom [GR. Sophia, eb. ok intellect], in which the intellect knows, but relishes what he knows and enjoys it. Science captures the true. Wisdom takes the real as good and beautiful [cf. Plato WHO, WHO e WHO]. Scholastic theology stops at the first instance, but it sets the conditions to ascend to the second, which it is precisely the mystical theology.

.

Unfortunately, But, as we well know, the idea of ​​school, discipline and study always gives bother anyone, especially the lazy, to charlatans, the presumptuous, envious and false innovators. Expenses, when he made elementary schools, He has not seen, on school building wall, the words "Down with the school!»? Well, the enemies of scholastic theology are those naughty adults become, which now they teach in many Catholic and Protestant Theological Faculty, and all those presumptuous, that, from their narrow views or their revolutionary dreams, loftily show contempt, now with coarse language, Now with Byzantine terms, for scholastic theology, considering it a tangled succession, uncritical and full of prejudices and legends, abstract and empty theories, incomprehensible, vane, unnecessarily thin, overcome, sterile controversy, without development, no historical sense, alien to the interests and way of speaking of men of their time.

.

Now, “scholastic theology” is simply not, come they would have us believe, a historic season of theology, built in the twelfth century, sclerotized, according to them, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, mummificatasi in the nineteenth century and definitely dissoltasi, Rahner argues eat, with the Second Vatican Council, to be replaced by the theology of Rahner, how they think today many. This is why it makes no sense to oppose scholastic theology, some call "classical", in a supposed theology "modern", It would supplanted and that would be suited to modernity. There is quite an old scholastic theology and modern scholastic theology. It is obvious that today the post-conciliar theologian is required to practice the modern school and even to advance it, even if the old one can always revisit, develop or resume themes or ideas, which they had remained in a state of insufficient processing or unwinding or only sketch.

.

The term class, from which "classical theology", It involves the idea the clear distinction, neat and tidy: classification, important virtues of the Roman mentality. Greece has category, that, at the level of preaching, It implies the same thing, especially the conceptualization. The correspondent in Sacred Scripture is sure Cause, the word, the reason, act as a clarifier of the mind. So the classic text is comparable to the sacred text and then to the dogma. The first profane, rational, philosophical; The second one, religious and theological. The one and the other is inviolable, mandatory and intangible; It must be carefully and accurately understood and taught, jealously guarded and preserved in its integrity. It is some truth, founding, final, regulatory and absolute, It is perennial source of wisdom for all generations. It can be commented and depth, but not changed or improved. Played, but reinterpreted, because the meaning changes over time, but his way is always to.

.

So, pull off the pretext of history and of "progress", like the modernists, to change the meaning to the perennial truths of reason and faith, It is a scam worthy of the utmost contempt. The modernists, violators of the sacred, They confuse it a sacred duty to preserve sacred tradition and the sacred text with the petty and short-sighted conservatism of those who refuse to learn and to advance on the path of truth, open to the Holy Spirit's breath, confusing the immutability with immobility and the firmness with the stiffness of death. And there are, these, to speak out for Santommaso and scholastic theology!.

.

CHARACTERS OF THE THEOLOGY SCHOOL

.

Let's continue our discussion. So then as it exists a classical culture, There is certainly a classical theology, whose values, having a perennial and absolute character, They must be preserved and developed. It is therefore necessary that the theologian, wise admirer of healthy modernity, not blinded or led astray by the blinders of modernist myopia, does not deal with self-importance and arrogance the rich heritage, inestimable and unfading, classicism, if it does not return to barbarism and nihilism of antiquity.

.

Scholastic theology, as the word, It is nothing more than the theology that is learned and taught in school, understood precisely as an educational institution, officially recognized by the Church, aimed to education and communication or transmission method, systematic, socially or publicly organized knowledge. In the case of scholastic theology, the knowledge that is learned and taught theology is. So we understand how, in the light of this simple definition and logic, the talk about an extinction of scholastic theology by the Council, who on the contrary warmly recommends its continuation and progress under the guidance of St. Thomas Aquinas, It is a serious foolishness.

.

Of course, scholastic theology or school is not the only form of theology. You can become theologians and great theologians, even Doctors of the Church, without having attended an official school or academic theology, without obtaining an academic degree, much less without having taught theology at a school or faculty of the Church. The important, Certain, It is the study, which can be under the guidance of a teacher, but learning can also take place in an autodidact way, or by means of research or personal reading or meditation. We then lectio divina the monastic tradition. Or the knowledge of God can be done by internal experience in charity, as a gift of the Holy Spirit, and then we have the mystical theology. This theology can be practiced by anyone, man or woman, young or old, duct or induced, secular religious. In any case, the Catholic has a duty to submitting theology, the interpretation given by the Church of Divine Revelation.

.

Scholastic theology, instead, in the knowledge of what has been revealed, It uses the resources of human reason, as the logic, biblical exegesis, biblical science, the patrologia, the doctrine of the Church, l’agiografia, anthropology, natural ethics, the story, natural sciences, metaphysics and natural theology, using an inductive-deductive method, so scientific. Scholastic theology is the science of rational conclusions drawn from revealed data [3]. Scholastic theology seminar ensures the theological formation of the priest, in itself not obliged to achieve higher qualifications, unless he undertakes the career of teaching theologian in ecclesiastical faculties.

.

The scholastic theology is divided into natural theology and revealed or supernatural theology. The first is founded on reason alone and is part of the philosophy; the second is based on the dogma. The latter includes two fundamental disciplines: dogmatic and moral. The first considers the truth of speculative faith; the second, those practices. The preparation for theology revealed constitutes the fundamental theology or apologetics, which it serves as an introduction to the revealed theology, demonstrating the reasons for the credibility of Revelation, the reasons for believing and responds to objections. Scholastic theology, Furthermore, it is helpful to the Magisterium in the preparation of its documents, propose the topics to be addressed and problems to solve, in interpreting and defending the teachings, in environmentally critical pastoral norms imprudent or inappropriate, and segnalargli dangerous heresies in circulation, suggesting how to refute them.

.

FORMING THE THEOLOGY OF LUTHER SCHOOL TO WORK

.

Luther, instead, although was a doctor of theology, with its rebellion against the Roman Church, He denied his schooling, and claims to base theology exclusively on Scripture and on the biblical sciences, no interpretation of the Church, but on his personal judgment. He thought that the scholastic theology, subject to the doctrine of the Church, he had learned, he had not served to deepen the truth of Revelation, but unlike the deceived about the truth of the Gospel, as it mediated both by reason, he believed totally corrupted by sin, both by the Magisterium of the Church, he considered fallible. Obviously Luther, Despite his polemic against reason, to avoid falling into irrationality, It is well obliged to still use reason; however, the absence of a purified rationality and disciplined in the logic, ends up misinterpret the Word of God, that he believes, freed from scholastic philosophy, of contact, not get help from it.

.

Thus we have the paradox of the immense production the Protestant theologian, provided at university and academic level, Luther today, on the one hand affected contempt for the Catholic theology school approved by the Church, for example St. Thomas with his school, while the other has done nothing but build another school, however no doctrinal purity and total fidelity to the Gospel own Catholic school, despite the incalculable amount of intellectual energy expended and tireless studies over the centuries. It is a grave misunderstanding of the teaching of the Council believe that it promotes progress and renewal of theology with the order the abandonment of scholastic theology. It would be a provision senseless, not progress, but go back in the history of theology at the time of the monastic theology of the century. XI, or even the biblical theology and homiletics of the Fathers, before Abelard and San Anselmo fondassero and gave off the dialectics and scientific theology, which it is precisely the scholastic theology.

.

THE ORIGINS OF THE THEOLOGY SCHOOL

.

Scholastic theology has arisen as a result of intellectual rebirth of the century. XII to XIII, especially for impulse of Dominican, soon followed by the Franciscans, with the approval and the support of the Papacy. Hence the foundation of the theological faculty of Paris, Oxford and, in the fourteenth century, Bologna, after the founding of the University of Bologna in the eleventh century. Over the following centuries until today the Papacy has always taken care of the quality, the good performance and development of scholastic theology, ie schools and the Faculty of Church, in particular so that they conform to the dogma and could therefore properly use of reason, of philosophy and science for the introduction and justification of the revealed data and interpretation, the clarification, explanation, the defence, the deepening and spreading of the Word of God.

.

Like this, what, following this uninterrupted educational line, the Second Vatican Council and the Papal Magisterium promote up to the present day [4] regarding theology, it is not at all, contrary to what they would like the modernists of yesterday and today, the abandonment of proven methods, of the fundamental statements and perennial principles of scholastic philosophy [5], as instead the enlargement and the refinement of its sensitivity, its interests and its horizons, continued research, the consolidation and deepening of the acquired data, the recovery of forgotten values, correcting outdated views, vigilance against insurgents errors, the deduction of new scientific findings, opening new paths of investigation, the formulation of new explanatory hypotheses, greater attention to the values ​​and defects of modernity, a greater mutual collaboration between theologians, greater freedom of thought, always in obedience to the Magisterium, in the escape from every exhibitionism and individualism, the improvement of the opening ecumenical, evangelizing and missionary, in the work of inculturation, in interreligious dialogue, interdisciplinary and intercultural, the use of a language more understandable to our contemporaries.

.

Scholastic theology, despite the common acceptance of the Catholic doctrine, embraces a plurality of currents and schools, reflecting different levels of theoretical perfection and a variety of settings, of guidelines, the emphases and preferences. According to the criterion of validity, the argumentative rigor and logical, as well as speculative perfection, the Church gives the palm to St. Thomas, without excluding other Doctors. Minding the fact of diversity, the main lines are the affettivismo Bonaventurian, which is distinguished Thomist intellectualism and voluntarism from these univocal Scotistic, distinguished in turn from voluntarism essentialist Suarezian. But within the same school Thomist not miss the nuances as between Capreolo and Gaetano, the first of which puts the existence of the person being in line, while the second places it in the line of essence [6].

.

THE SCHOOL medieval decadence

.

In the schools of theology sponsored by the Church there have been, in centuries, dangerous deviations, which, though for a time they could be kept at bay by the vigilance of the Church, afterwards, for the rise of universities and academic institutions independent secular or even hostile to the Catholic Church, for example Protestants, for their incompatibility with Catholic dogma, They gave rise in the long run to anti-Christian philosophies and theologies. I'm, these, for instance, famous cases of Abelard in the twelfth century William of Ockham in the fourteenth century.

.

Meister Eckhart was a doctor of theology, but not exercised teaching, but merely to preaching and writings. It was pious and even a mystical man. However he had some expressions they knew of pantheistic Christology ["I am Christ"], which earned him a conviction after death in 1329 by John XXII, conviction, But, to which he humbly promised to submit, in case it had taken place, and this act of humility he received the Pope's praise, that while he disapproved of some of his theses, and did, vain as some of our days, you are the pride of contesting the Magisterium of the Church and are able to avoid condemnation or the shameful protections afforded or their cunning, or the lack of their bishops.

.

As ad Abelardo, which resolved the moral appearance Subjective-inenzione rejecting the objective of content-, was condemned, on the recommendation of San Bernardo, by the Council of Sens 1141. Instead Ockham, smarter, Credit managed to collect illegally within the Church, although in constant contrast with her, for which he was sentenced in 1348. But that did not prevent his disciples, for several centuries, such as Gabriel Biel, in the fifteenth century, to get a space in the ecclesiastical theology, so that Luther, as is known, he boasted of being a disciple of Ockham, while the Dominicans, who were not easily duped [7], especially with Card. Gaetano in the sixteenth century, hard they fought his mistakes. But the occamismo, that such empiricism English origin, strong recommendation of the Lutheran, It survived to the present day, and of course in the Lutheran theology, It is led to the current modernism, especially in the current existentialistic, historicist, phenomenology and empiricist.

.

The concretism Occamistic also leads to materialism. The same transcendental idealism, however far dall'occamismo for his rationalist spiritualism, He has at the bottom a core Nominalist, evident in Kant, when for him the abstraction does not need to grasp the essence of things and the body universal reality, starting from the experience, but only to deduce a priori idea from another. Kant's doctrine of the phenomenon resembles the intuition of concrete Occamistic. Let's make a list of the errors of William of Ockham, pathogenic germs of thought of the following centuries until today.

.

  1. Subject of metaphysics is not the universal body, but the concrete singular, immediately experienced.
  2. The abstractive operation away from the concrete and then from reality.
  3. With the abstraction is not understood Universal real essence, but only a vague general picture, that is designated by a name ["nominalism"], that collects and designates a collection of like-minded individuals to each other.
  4. Since the universal has no objective reality, but it's only a name, do not exist logical necessity based on universal objective essence, but only empirical facts mutable and contingent, connected to each other by association of ideas. For that we can not give a definite rational demonstration, irrefutable and incontestable, but only probable conclusions and always revisable.
  5. The truth is that because the intellect is adapting to the real, but because you will want it to be true.
  6. So good is not derived from life, but it is decided by the will.
  7. God does not want something because it is good, but something is good because God wills it.
  8. So the moral law is not based on an objective human nature, universal and abstract, but only on the concrete nature: human nature is that date and individual human nature and the sum of the individuals. The moral law, so, It does not depend on the truth of man, but only by the will of God, that, if you would, It might rule as a good murder or adultery.
  9. So for me, if I want to imitate the divine freedom, there are non-negotiable values, but I accept them only if I should.

.

PHILOSOPHY LAY AGAINST THE THEOLOGY SCHOOL

.

Scholastic theology, as we have seen, sorse initiative of the Church, in particular the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, who ordered the bishops to get help from good theological education and the training of clergy. It was obvious that teachers should be priests, Religious or secular. This was the great chance for the birth of the Dominican Order. In fact, San Domenico leaned on this canon of the Council to kick off his Order of Preachers, sending his brothers to a doctorate in leading theological centers of that time, Paris, Bologna ed Oxford, and for them to form good priests and bishops to be placed at the disposal of the Pope so that he could send them to preach the Gospel throughout Europe.

.

In the Middle Ages, as is known, The philosophical culture and theological took place under the presidency and the protection of the Church, and it was practiced by priests and religious, because he was ordered to the cultural education of priests and bishops. The philosophy was exclusively at the service of theology and therefore the Faith. But in the Middle Ages, especially behind the stimulus of the Dominican, promoting the exploitation, with Santommaso Aquinas, St. Albert the Great and St. Catherine of Siena, the function of the lay, human and civil values, of science, arts and rationality, They began to make inroads, in philosophy and theology, even the laity. Example among all, although then very rare, was Dante Alighieri.

.

Wrong'exploit of secular culture, which he tended to escape the supervision of the Church, After the first signs with the Palatine School of Charlemagne in the ninth century Scotus Erigena, and the Court of Frederick II of Sicily in the thirteenth century, Humanism was the Italian fifteenth century and even more the Renaissance, which came to be a real return of Paganism, with its arrogance, his flesh, its debauchery and its superstitions.

.

The Italian of the '400 had Humanism, per pulse of Lorenzo de 'Medici, therefore outside of ecclesiastical academic institutions, his theological soul in the Platonic Academy founded by Marsilio Ficino, who became a priest 50 year old, but he established in the field of theology and mysticism hermetic trend and Platonic. Florentine environment here is therefore foxy flourishing political thought of Machiavelli and the pagan humanism of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, unnecessarily thwarted by Savonarola, true academic theologian, Although foreign academic institution of the Church, and even persecuted by Pope Alexander VI, eager to dominate sull'appetibile Florence by the Medici.

.

With the rise of the Renaissance, the Papacy loses gradually both the theological prestige both morally on European Christianity, so here is the multiplication of lay theologians and philosophers, that increasingly bring into collision with the theology of the Church, namely the scholastic theology, such as in the sixteenth century, materialist sensist Bernardino Telesio and Pomponazzi University of Padua, who denied the immortality of the soul with the claim to refer to Aristotle. In this climate, to complete the desolation of time, as opposed to paganism Renaissance, but unfortunately also to scholastic theology, making all lump everything, as is known, It missed that this becomes the Lutheran Reformation, further blow to scholastic theology, although this time it was, with Luther, a theologian formed in scholastic theology. But then Luther, After a start that seemed to be sincere and promising, made clear the Church to understand that under the cover of apparent fervent faith and trusting in the merciful Christ, He burned on the same impure flame of the proud and self-centered I renaissance.

.

The Council of Trent restores badly damaged scholastic theology and sadly maligned Luther, and starts, with a renewed recommendation of Aquinas' doctrine, a new vigorous and fruitful season of scholastic theology, that has its major exponent in Francis Suarez, whose system, as is known, tries to pull Thomas, Scotus and Ockham. This syncretism prepares the advent of Descartes, who, as is known, He was a pupil of the Jesuits.

.

CARTESIO ENEMY OF THE THEOLOGY SCHOOL

.

But with Descartes, in sec. XVII, the philosophy of the laity It becomes even more arrogant and, advancing the foolish but fascinating claim to have found the first incontrovertible principle of legal certainty and the truth is not in adherence or equating of the intellect to the sensitive entity known through the senses - Thomistics and Aristotelian the essence of the material —, but in an immediate and original - in reality nonexistent - consciousness of thinking. This awareness was therefore obtained from a previous experience of sensible things, but from the self-consciousness [«cogito»], Descartes would like to identify with the consciousness to exist («sum»), with the result that the cogito It comes to identify with sum [Hegel] or the sum It is "place" (sets) from the cogito [Fichte].

.

It is clear that this conception of the principle of knowledge, which implies an idealistic conception of the principle of being, It is the total subversion of philosophy and theology school; not only, but it is also the subversion of the bases of reason and Christian faith. Which it is even worse, despite assurances to the contrary Descartes. Although therefore there is talk of a Cartesian school and attempts have been made - for example Malebranche and Leibnitz, until Hegel, and Gioberti, The 800 ontologists, Bontadini and the modernists - to build a theology on the basis of cogito, these attempts have failed or illusory, and for this reason the Church, while on one hand the Index of the works of Descartes in 1663, since then he has done nothing but recommend, until Vatican II and beyond, a scholastic theology based on Aristotelian-Thomistic vision.

.

Because of this, it is extremely regrettable that oggi like today the Cartesian idealist influence, through the work of the modernists, without significant interventions of ecclesiastical, It is penetrated in the same academic institutions of the Church, with the consequence of forming priests, bishops and theologians self-styled "progressive", no character and no personality, as by the wind beaten reeds, cowards and opportunists, or ambitious and vainglorious, prone to serve and to seek consensus from the world. Cartesianism is so transcendental idealism to the German origins of the nineteenth century, I still live as this idealism is jointly development of Lutheranism. But it can not be considered true theology school, ie scientific, because it has no basis either in reason nor faith, but it is one that Antonio Livi rightly calls a "dubious religious philosophy"[8].

.

But Descartes is also the Enlightenment origins and the Masonic doctrine, powerful today as well in the world. It is also the origin of Husserl's phenomenology. Heidegger comes from Husserl. Severino is an idealist eternalista. How all'occamismo, it is still alive English empiricism and existentialism. Marxism arose from opposition to Hegel. Idealism in turn was and is the inspiration of modernism, of which the Council was able to capture the positive aspects, eliminating the poison, so that the scholastic theology today can make use of these instances purified by the Council.

.

IF WE WANT TO KEEP THE DOGMA, WE MUST CONTINUE AND IMPROVE THE THEOLOGY SCHOOL

.

Today, in educational institutions themselves, educational and academic of the Church, there is almost nowhere the intention of making scholastic philosophy in continuity, albeit progressed, with that of past centuries, and often it is lost or despises the very concept of scholastic theology, as we have defined it in accordance with the Magisterium of the Church. and believe, with Rahner, that the scholastic theology or "neo-scholasticism", as they call, it ended with the Second Vatican Council: which in reality it is totally false, since, as it is known outside of those who do not know, just that great Council's what, unlike all other, recommended St. Thomas, Prince of Scholastics [9].

.

It is to be noted, however, that discipleship Thomist It does not always require absolute uniformity of thought, but it gives space to a certain diversity of opinions. For instance, the concept of the person's livelihood can be approached or essence or existence. In the first case it appears more clearly the element of the immutability of the essence and therefore immutability of the moral law; in the second case, instead, It appears lighter concreteness and existential mutability of each person, so it is easier for the right application of the moral law in concrete cases.

.

Starting from the immediate post-council have so began to assert itself, in the schools of the Church, of forms and methods of theology, which, although still obliged to organize legally and technically schools, They are in fact deliberately refuse to stand in continuity, albeit progressive and innovative, with the previous scholastic theology, start with the sad result of bad schools, modernist, seedbeds of heresies, for the absence or falsification of values, the principles and methods of ancient centuries, safe and proven, the previous scholastic theology. In the fifty years since the Council there have been several attempts to renew, to correct, modernize and improve teaching, teaching and the content of theology in the Church institutions, but unfortunately it is mostly initiated and produced a fake renewal, which it is actually decadence and barbarism type modernistic, mostly influenced by Protestantism and German idealism.

.

A clear sign of this serious cultural degradation, is almost universal scorn which was held metaphysics, especially in its realistic setting, What is that of St. Thomas, that is the one recommended by the Church. On the fundamentals of metaphysics, which are those most original, spontaneous, evident and incontrovertible of reason, conquer the most crass ignorance, instead of which we are content of the fantastic creations, of fables and mythology. Obviously great is the damage for the understanding of the dogma, that is falsified or emptied of meaning, since it is mostly formulated in metaphysical concepts.

.

Beyond dell'orpello structures, of erudition historical and technical services, the scientific level, intellectual, and wisdom is often descended below the medieval one. Heresies prenicene or Protestant, that they thought had been superseded for centuries, You were repeated again, and indeed they are now in vogue, as if the Church in all this time nothing had taught or clarified. Modernism, that seemed to have been defeated by St. Pius X, instead he hatched under the ashes, and he returned into the open worse than before, after the Council, falsely presenting himself as his interpreter. The theological trends, now dominant in ecclesiastical institutions, that today contend for the succession to scholastic theology, I am liberation theology of Schillebeeckx and Rahner's transcendental theology. Both, aside from their own characteristics, repudiate speculative theology and are subject to influences and Protestants Masonic.

.

Modern Theology, under the pretext of preaching and evangelization, on the thrust of Luther, followed by Barth and Bultmann, It resolves theology 'kerygmatica», thus reduced or pastoral [Rahner] or praxis of liberation [Schillebeeckx]. Instead, the theology, as a science, or speculative and demonstrative knowledge, systematic deductive ordered a complete set, logically connected, fixed propositions, certain, precise and unchanging, It is repudiated or as impossible or as a medieval residue or as a set of antiquated formulas, abstract, ahistorical and rigid, unable to affect the concrete realities.

.

Another feature of modernist theology is its historicism, [Kasper, Küng, Cricket, Strong and Bordoni], dependent on its denial of an immutable truth and supra. Not so much to reduce theology to the history of theology, which would already be a mistake, but it is a serious mistake, concerning the same formal knowledge production: the same to theology is not a reason or infer or prove, but a recount, a recount. The event" [Event] It is replacing the concept and then the dogma. This is not to say that a dogma can not have as a historical fact contained, for example the crucifixion of Christ, But historicism is the very act of knowledge that is an "event"; from that becoming or mutate the same formal object of the act, and then the impossibility of an immutable truth.

.

A sort of theological stream recently in the context of moral theology in particular in relation to the wider problem concerning sexual and family ethics, is the so-called queer theology (queer = odd, bizarre), but better known by serious theologians' pornoteologia ", according to an expression coined in the early seventies by Father Cornelio Fabro. It is indeed a trend pseudoteologica obscene and heretical, which replaces the natural law, judged "abstract", "Outdated" and "rigid", with blind obedience to the instinctual drive and subjective sexual pleasure, it 'libido' Freudian, according to which everyone is free to choose the "sexual orientation". It deals with, at the bottom of, a brazen shooting of the old Epicurean pay, always tempting for men fleshly, hypocrite with theological varnishing [poor theology!], where there is nothing divine, but only the pure exaltation of pleasure.

.

In front of such barbarism and degradation of theology, under the most vain and specious pretexts and false appearances of "odernità post-conciliar", then we must say very clearly that the Second Vatican Council, whose address in theological studies find a bright orientation and a powerful stress and application encyclical Faith and Reason of St. John Paul II [cf. WHO], to which was followed by the encyclical Light of Faith [cf. WHO] and the recent Apostolic Constitution of Pope Francis The joy of truth [cf. WHO], with its reference to St Thomas Aquinas, authoritatively confirms the relevance and importance of scholastic theology for the formation of the clergy and to deal constructively with the values ​​and errors of modernity.

.

Varazze, 17 June 2018

.

_____________________

NOTE

[1] See the commemoration of this event in the Proceedings of the conference sponsored by the Diocese of Perugia in 2003, published in Perugia in 2004, "The Christian philosophy of the century and the Magisterium of Pope Leo XIII".

[2] Cf the monographic number of Two Thomas, The fate ecclesial theology as a science, n.40, gen.-apr., 1/2005; A.Livi, True and false theology. How to distinguish the authentic "science of faith" from an equivocal "religious philosophy", Leonardo da Vinci's publishing house, Rome 2012.

[3] Cf A. Gardeil, The revealed and theology, Editions du Cerf, Paris 1932.

[4] See the recent Apostolic Constitution Pope Francis "Veritatis gaudium" on the Reform of Ecclesiastical Studies.

[5] CF. G. Matthew, SJ, The thesis of the XXIV Santommaso philosophy Aquinas approved by S. Congregation of Studies, Typography of the Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome 1947.

[6] U. Degl'Innocenti, Disagreement with the Capreolo Gaetano about personality, in The problem of the person in the Santommaso thought, Libreria Editrice of the Pontifical Lateran University, Rome 1967, pp.122-154.

[7] It is necessary to arrive at the sec. XX, with the current Schillebeeckx, for Dominicans lack of critical sense and victims of modern prejudices.

[8] True and false theology. How to distinguish the authentic "science of faith" from an equivocal "religious philosophy", Leonardo da Vinci's publishing house, Rome 2012.

[9] CF. Wished for Total, 16 WHO e Education, 10 WHO.

.

.

.


«You will know the truth and the truth will set you free» [GV 8,32],
but bring, spread and defend the truth not only of
risks but also the costs. Help us supporting this Island
with your offers through the secure Paypal system:



or you can use the bank account:
They were IT 08 (J) 02008 32974 001436620930
in this case, send us an email warning, because the bank
It does not provide your email and we could not send you a
thanks [ isoladipatmos@gmail.com ]

.

.

.

..

.

.

1 reply
  1. Nick
    Nick says:

    Excellent article. The only relief that I allow myself humbly to do is related to a user, in my opinion, too casual of the term 'Renaissance paganism', since the Renaissance, in his best exponents, I think of a Ficino (1433-1499), but also to a Nicola Cusano (1401-1464) and a Agostino Steuco (1497/8-1548), both bishops, also he had a profoundly Christian soul, whose goal was reinterpreted in the light of Christianity, the Greek philosophical tradition to which, after the Council of Florence and the influx into Europe of the Greek manuscripts of the great classical philosophers and the Neoplatonists, it was now possible to directly access, without the filter of the preceding Arabic or Latin translations. I personally think that if the Church had been able to operate on humanism that work of harmonization with Catholicism that St. Thomas was able to take on the classical tradition (Aristotle, Plato) and Neoplatonic (ii blamed del Liber reasons, that has so much weight in the Summa), humanism would not be prevailed hostile tendency to the doctrine of the Church, present in some of the members appointed, and which paved the way for the modern world

Comments are closed.