Traditionalism and neoscholasticism

[rasbat]

This is a bit of a convoluted question. I am of ever increasingly traditional leanings myself so I intend no disrespect to anyone. I have been having a hard time understanding the issues surrounding the controversies between pre vatican II neoscholastics and those theologians commonly associated with nouvelle theologie with regard to the study of history. It seems as though many looked back in time to the patristic period and middle ages and drew on some things there only to be attacked by neoscholastics. Today’s traditionalists seem very enthusiastic about neoscholastic theology. the way it seems is that this type of thought was less than a century old at the time of vatican II and had become completely entrenched. It appears to be almost influenced by the enlightenment in its outlook wolfianism and suarezianism are words thrown about in books on the subject. I have a poor understanding of all of this. It would seem as though traditionalists would want to look back into the distant past trying to rediscover the good stuff there. Basically from where I am sitting it looks as though some people looked far into the past and were for some reason labeled as modernists and still are by some. I find this confusing. I simply want to know why theologians who study history have been labeled modernists by others who adhered to a system of thought which had only become entrenched quite recently in the greater scale of things.
Attempting an answer the only two things I can think of are these. 1. that the ideas of thologians such as St. Thomas Aquinas and others are timeless and should be divorced from their historical setting as it is ultimately irrelevant. as a result of this anyone looking too deeply at history will make claims that these ideas came out of a particular historical context and are not universally objectively true. This could lead in the direction of relativism which is in the realm of modernism. 2. That these theologians harvested select bits from the past and intermixed them with extremely new ideas to form a synthesis which was not in keeping with the true tradition of the church and laden with radical ideas supposedly taken from the past but tainted by the lens of the viewer. are either of these things the reason? are there any traditionalists out there these days who espouse a kind of medievalism harkening back to before the enlightenment? sorry for the disjointed question I have been in too many theology classes lately and wondering about things I cannot clearly articulate.

 

[balto]

Well I think you have to keep in mind that the Church doesn’t have an “official” philosophy so it isn’t necessarily bad that theologians try to incorporate modern ideas into Catholic theology or philosophy. That said, it seems that nowadays theologians tend to go off the rails whenever they try to be “modern” so maybe that is the criticism to which you are referring. And on top of that the intellectual tradition coming from Aquinas is something that should be taken seriously.

I don’t know too much about neo-Scholasticism and its effects on traditionalists though. I would have assumed that most rationally-minded traditionalists would be adherents to medieval Scholasticism. An excellent example of this would be Prof. Edward Feser (edwardfeser.blogspot.com/) who has written numerous books on Scholasticism, most notably Aquinas and his recent Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction. But he’s also a Latin Mass guy who apparently follows Fr. Z’s blog . I’m sure there are others. I know that Dr. Anthony Rizzi, a Catholic physicist, is also a contemporary Scholastic who remarked on Marcus Grodi’s The Journey Home that his rediscovery of the traditional Mass was an influence to look into Scholastic philosophy.

 

[Kyrie_eleison_9]

This is a bit of a convoluted question. I am of ever increasingly traditional leanings myself so I intend no disrespect to anyone. I have been having a hard time understanding the issues surrounding the controversies between pre vatican II neoscholastics and those theologians commonly associated with nouvelle theologie with regard to the study of history. It seems as though many looked back in time to the patristic period and middle ages and drew on some things there only to be attacked by neoscholastics. Today’s traditionalists seem very enthusiastic about neoscholastic theology. the way it seems is that this type of thought was less than a century old at the time of vatican II and had become completely entrenched. It appears to be almost influenced by the enlightenment in its outlook wolfianism and suarezianism are words thrown about in books on the subject. I have a poor understanding of all of this. It would seem as though traditionalists would want to look back into the distant past trying to rediscover the good stuff there. Basically from where I am sitting it looks as though some people looked far into the past and were for some reason labeled as modernists and still are by some. I find this confusing. I simply want to know why theologians who study history have been labeled modernists by others who adhered to a system of thought which had only become entrenched quite recently in the greater scale of things.
Attempting an answer the only two things I can think of are these. 1. that the ideas of thologians such as St. Thomas Aquinas and others are timeless and should be divorced from their historical setting as it is ultimately irrelevant. as a result of this anyone looking too deeply at history will make claims that these ideas came out of a particular historical context and are not universally objectively true. This could lead in the direction of relativism which is in the realm of modernism. 2. That these theologians harvested select bits from the past and intermixed them with extremely new ideas to form a synthesis which was not in keeping with the true tradition of the church and laden with radical ideas supposedly taken from the past but tainted by the lens of the viewer. are either of these things the reason? are there any traditionalists out there these days who espouse a kind of medievalism harkening back to before the enlightenment? sorry for the disjointed question I have been in too many theology classes lately and wondering about things I cannot clearly articulate.

I would suggest, if you have not already read it, reading Aeterni Patris; theEncyclical of Pope Leo XIII on the restoration of Christian Philosophy.

 

[otjm]

about 3 months ago I wa reading an article by a current theologian who was critiquing the works of de Lubac, von Bathasar and several other theologians all working about the same time. The group of them had had problems with neo-scholasticism, in particular with the fact that because it is essentially a categorizing methodology, that it was too limiting in its approach. For the life of me I can’t find it, but it was very well done. In any event, the conclusion was that they were too successful, in that while they were successful in moving away from the neo-scholastic approach, they spent so much time pushing against it that they failed to spend the time coming up with a systematic approach that could be carried on.

A scholastic approach - whether Thomistic, neo-scholastic or some variation, is not likely to go away. There is danger, however, in becoming too closely aligned with one approach, as it is not the answer to all questions, nor the methodology to provide all answers. A short example is Theology of the Body, which approaches issues from a humanistic and phenomenological perspective. When it first came out, it was questioned by a number of neo-scholastic theologians, who appeared to not be able to get their minds wrapped around it because it had such a different approach. The warning should be that not all theology is done in scholasticism.

Benedict XVI has been repeatedly referred to as the most brilliant theologian alive. His background is in an Augustinian approach rather than a Thomistic one. Some of the criticism that has been launched against both John Paul and Benedict come from people who are so entrenched in a form that they cannot parse out what is presented in a different format.

Some of the nouvelle theologians, as you refer to them, were censored; for example, de Lubac, a Jesuit, was removed from his teaching post (by the Jesuits, allegedly because of intense pressure from the Curia) and some of his works were pulled and/or forbidden; he was later “rehabilitated”, and found favor with John 23rd, Paul 6th, and John Paul 2. Those who criticize that tend to be in a very small minority. It should be granted that there were problems afoot (Loisy comes to mind as well as some of his colleagues) but blanketing everyone who did not match a certain mold is at best intellectual dishonesty.