Philosophy and Catholic Theology: A Primer
Philosophy and Catholic Theology: A Primer
Philosophy and Catholic Theology: A Primer
Catholic Theology
A Primer
Philip A. Egan
LITURGICAL PRESS
Collegeville, Minnesota
www.litpress.org
A Michael Glazier Book published by Liturgical Press
Excerpt from Ludwig Ott, The Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma. Edited by James
Canon Bastible. Translated by Patrick Lynch. Rockford, IL: TAN Books and
Publishers, 1974. Reproduced courtesy of TAN Books and Publishers, Inc.
Excerpts from Dei Filius, the First Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on
the Catholic Faith, are from Jacques Dupuis, ed., The Christian Faith in the Doc-
trinal Documents of the Catholic Church, 7th revised and enlarged edition (New
York: Alba House, 2001).
Excerpts from documents of the Second Vatican Council are from Vatican Coun-
cil II: Volume 1, The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, by Austin Flannery,
OP © 1996 (Costello Publishing Company, Inc.). Used by permission.
Scripture texts in this work are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible
© 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches
of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights re
served.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Egan, Philip A.
Philosophy and Catholic theology : a primer / Philip A. Egan.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-8146-5661-7 (pbk.)
1. Catholic Church and philosophy. 2. Theology. 3. Catholic Church—
Doctrines. 4. Philosophy and religion. I. Title.
BX1795.P47E24 2009
230'.042—dc22
2008040187
Contents
List of Figures v
Preface vii
iii
iv Philosophy and Catholic Theology
Appendix:
Excerpts from the First Vatican General Council (Third Session):
Dei Filius (Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith, 1870) 167
Bibliography 172
Index 173
Figures
v
Preface
vii
viii Philosophy and Catholic Theology
these matters, and so, following the mainstream of that tradition, we look
at the role of reason in the theological process, the history of theology,
the questions theology deals with, its foundations, and some of its basic
parameters. Extensive use is made in this section of magisterial statements
that have established a clear direction for subsequent theology, namely,
the Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith (Dei Filius) of the First
Vatican Council (1870) and the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Reve
lation (Dei Verbum) of the Second Vatican Council (1965). The relevant
sections from the text of the former can be found in the appendix, and
the relevant paragraphs from the latter were neatly summarized in the
Catechism of the Catholic Church (80–95). As these magisterial pronounce
ments are explored, the chief counter positions are also discussed.
Chapter 2, “Recent Theology,” is about the context in which theology
has been done in the recent past and is being done today. The trends and
developments that have taken place over the last hundred years or so
are examined. Central to Catholic theology during this period has been
the far-reaching process of change and renewal that led to Vatican II
(1962–1965), and that in some respects caught the wider church unaware.
We also discuss the progress made in the period since. The council had
a profound and pervasive impact on every aspect of ecclesial life, and
this section discusses the principal theological developments that have
occurred, together with the key protagonists.
Chapter 3, “Philosophy and Theology,” reaches the heart of the matter
by exploring the influence of the various families of contemporary phi
losophy on this or that strand of theology, on this or that theologian, and
on this or that theological issue. Such an enterprise has its risks, as the
reader will appreciate, since it could easily fall prey to oversimplification,
both philosophical and theological. This is why the author must state at
the outset that he is not trying to sum up the history and concern of each
philosophy mentioned or to suggest that any individual theologian is
in the exclusive thrall of any particular philosophy, even though some
theologians do acknowledge their dependence on particular philoso
phers or on rigorously grounded philosophical presuppositions. Rather,
the aim of this section is simply to indicate general influences on a theo
logian’s thought or work.
Chapter 4, “Theological Method,” looks at some of the theological
methods and features of theology from the past, at the functions of the
creeds in the early period and the quaestio disputata in the Middle Ages,
and then how the challenges of the Reformation and modernity were met
by neoscholasticism and its thesis theology. After discussing the crisis
Preface ix
of method following Vatican II, the second half of the section explores
some of the current “styles” of theology and their philosophical under
pinnings.
It would be impossible to offer a primer like this from a supposedly
neutral perspective, and in any case this is not our purpose. The concept
of theology here is avowedly Roman Catholic, or at least its intention is
to fit squarely within the mainstream of the Roman Catholic tradition,
giving due value to the statements of the Roman magisterium relating
to theology, faith, and reason. I hope, too, that this work will recall aspects
of these issues that other Roman Catholic theologians may have neglected.
Yet it does all of this irenically and with a critical awareness of the chal
lenges put to the tradition. In any case, much of what is said is not
exclusive to the Roman Catholic tradition, and I hope that readers from
the Orthodox, Protestant, and Reformed traditions will find in the text
useful paradigms and examples to illuminate their own thinking. Where
practicable, cross-references to theologians and trends within Orthodox,
Protestant, and Reformed theology are incorporated.
Finally, the reader will also notice the influence on this text of the
Thomist tradition in general and of the Canadian Jesuit philosopher and
theologian Bernard Lonergan (1904–84) in particular.
I give thanks to Our Lord Jesus Christ, who has given me the great
privilege of sharing in his sacred priesthood. I would also like to thank
the Most Rev. Brian Noble, bishop of Shrewsbury, for his trust, prayers,
and untiring support; Father Joseph Flanagan and the Lonergan Institute
at Boston College for their encouragement and the wherewithal that
enabled the writing of this book; Father Mark Crisp and the staff of
St. Mary’s College Oscott for their friendship and Christian example; the
students of the college for patiently sitting through my lectures; and
Dr. Andrew Beards and those at the Maryvale Institute, Birmingham,
for inviting me to make a contribution to their philosophy program.
Philip Egan
St. Mary’s College Oscott
26 January 2008
Chapter One
Theology
1
2 Philosophy and Catholic Theology
nuanced statement about the relationship of faith and reason that Vatican
I made was largely reiterated by John Paul II in his 1998 encyclical Fides
et Ratio.
4. All religious truths originate from the natural power of human reason.
Hence reason is the principal norm by which we can and must reach
knowledge of whatever kind of truths.
. . .
6. Faith in Christ is detrimental to human reason and divine revelation
not only is of no use but is even harmful to human perfection.
. . .
8. Since human reason is on a par with religion itself, theological disciplines
have to be handled in the same manner as the philosophical ones.
. . .
9. All dogmas of the Christian religion are, without distinction, the object
of natural science or of philosophy; human reason solely as developed
in history can, by means of its natural powers and principles, come to
a true understanding of all, even the more profound dogmas, provided
only that such dogmas be proposed to reason as its object.
. . .
4 Philosophy and Catholic Theology
11. The church must not only abstain from any censure of philosophy; she
must also tolerate the errors of philosophy, and leave it to philosophy
to correct itself.
. . .
14. Philosophy is to be treated without taking any account of supernatural
revelation. (Pius IX, Syllabus of Condemned Errors, DS 2904, 2906, 2908-9,
2911, and 2914/ ND 112)
These disputes about faith and reason formed the background to Dei
Filius (1870). It is interesting, in this context, to compare and contrast the
philosophical context of Vatican I with that of Pope John Paul II’s encycli
cal letter Fides et Ratio (1998). Whereas in the nineteenth century the
critical issue was faith, and whether faith could convey knowledge
additional to that attained by human reason, for John Paul II the various
postmodern philosophies of deconstruction had undermined human
reason and made reason the critical issue, particularly whether human
reason could know anything at all with certainty. In fact, it could be
argued, the relationship of faith and reason continues to be highly con
troversial in the early twenty-first century. The philosophico-theological
discussion of how faith and reason might be correlated distinguishes
Christianity from the other major religions. In his “Address to Scientists
at the University of Regensburg” (2006), Pope Benedict XVI explored
the use of reason in religion, making the provocative point that if crea
tion had not been made through Logos, the Word, then God could pre
sumably ask humans to perform nonreasonable deeds and actions that
might even be extreme.
The issue of the relationship between faith and reason raises at least
three clusters of questions. First, what is the nature of faith? Is it reasonable?
Or is the Christian faith principally a feeling, as Friedrich Schleiermacher
(d. 1834) asserted, or a leap in the dark, as Søren Kierkegaard (d. 1855) put
it?
Second, does revelation reveal things that are not knowable by reason?
Or are the Christian faith and its teachings perfectly reasonable, even
rationally demonstrable? Immanuel Kant (d. 1804) spoke of a “religion
within the bounds of pure reason.” In other words, would it be true to
say that what Christians believe about love—that people should refrain
from murder, violence, injustice, and oppression—should make as much
sense to an unbeliever as to a believer?
A third complex of questions arises around the precise nature of the
relationship between faith and reason. For instance: how, if at all, does
theology relate to other fields of knowledge? Does it in any way connect
Theology 5
with the empirical sciences, natural and human? Indeed, could there
ever be a contradiction between the principles, positions, and results of
theology and those of the sciences, and if so, how might it be resolved
and which discipline might have the priority?
Christians might respond to these issues in one of two ways. On the
one hand, evangelicals, following the direction set by Martin Luther
(d. 1546) and Karl Barth (d. 1968), insist on sola fide, faith alone. Faith is
far more important than reason. Indeed, the only thing that matters is a
personal faith in Jesus Christ. The original sin of Adam and Eve has left
humanity a massa damnata, with nothing to be proud of. Even reason has
been darkened. Before the sheer truth, reality, justice, and glory of God,
revealed above all on the cross of Christ, the intellect is like a mirror that
has been smashed, the glass emptied out. Humans can know little or
nothing about God by the light of natural reason. Jesus Christ alone is
the Way, the Truth, and the Light, and it is thanks to his revelation that
the saving truths about God are known.
Other Christians have rejected this line of thinking and, largely under
the influence of nineteenth-century rationalism and twentieth-century
liberalism, have opted instead to subject faith and the teachings of Chris
tianity to reason alone, and even to personal choice and opinion. In this
view the human intellect has not been damaged at all by the Fall. Reason
is a gift God has given to humans so that they can find the truth and
discern the right way to live.
Vatican I took a middle line on these debates. The council envisaged
faith and reason as complementary, that is, as mutually and intrinsically
interrelated. Human reason was damaged by original sin but not
destroyed. The mirror had been cracked, but it was still serviceable.
According to Dei Filius, divine revelation not only helps humans to cope
with those cracks, confirming things that reason can see, but in addition
gives access to many other matters of faith that would not otherwise
have been known. Thus, the council declared, there are some theological
realities that can be known through ordinary human knowing. Some
theologians list examples of these, such as the presence of the soul, the
existence of God, the reality of human freedom, the natural law, the
promise of immortality, and the hope of an afterlife. There are, in addi
tion, many other truths revealed to humanity by Jesus Christ, and these
are known by faith.
Vatican I, therefore, stressed two kinds of knowledge: what can be
known through reason and what can be known through revelation, the
two orders (reason and faith) being not opposed but mutually interrelated.
6 Philosophy and Catholic Theology
Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises
to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart
a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by
knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the
fullness of truth about themselves. (John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, n. 1)
That truth and falsehood in religion are but matter of opinion; that
one doctrine is as good as another; that the Governor of the world
does not intend that we should gain the truth; that there is no truth;
that we are not more acceptable to God by believing this than by
believing that; that no one is answerable for his opinions; that they
are a matter of necessity or accident; that it is enough if we sincerely
hold what we profess; that our merit lies in seeking, not in possess
ing; that it is a duty to follow what seems to us true, without a fear
lest it should not be true; that it may be a gain to succeed, and can
be no harm to fail; that we may take up and lay down opinions at
pleasure; that belief belongs to the mere intellect, not to the heart
also; that we may safely trust to ourselves in matters of Faith, and
need no other guide—this is the principle of philosophies and her
esies, which is very weakness. (John Henry Newman, An Essay on
the Development of Christian Doctrine, 357–58)
[The church] holds and teaches that God, the source and end of all
things, can be known with certainty from the things that were
created, through the natural light of human reason . . . [and] that
truths about things divine which of themselves are not beyond
human reason can, even in the present condition of humankind, be
known by everyone with facility, with firm certitude and with no
admixture of error. (Vatican I Dei Filius, DS 3004-5/ND 113-44)
Dei Filius asserted that humans can know that God exists, and that they
can know certain things about God by the light of unaided human reason.
In other words, belief in God can be proved (in the sense of demonstrated
Theology 9
A B C
FAITH REASON
In other words, the secular and sacred arenas can overlap. Thus, we know some things
as revealed by faith (A), some through reason (C), and some—recalling what was said
above about natural knowledge of God—are accessible to both (B). Simple examples
might be: (A) the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity, (C) the structure of DNA, and (B) the
existence of God.
Figure 1
we might note how the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) 31-35
handles and develops the teaching of Dei Filius. When it speaks about
knowing for certain about the existence of God, it says that the knowl
edge of God’s existence is not like a proof from the empirical sciences,
but rather a collection of “converging and convincing arguments” based
on the world humans know and on the marvel of the human person.
Our second point to note is that divine revelation and human reason
yield two orders of knowledge:
In other words, here Dei Filius states that there are two orders of knowl
edge: that which comes through reason and that which comes through
revelation. They differ in their source—one is from human observation,
the other from God—and in their object: one is the realm of things known
by human reason, the other the realm of things revealed by God. Accord
ing to the council, therefore, human knowing can take two forms: reli
gious knowing (knowing illuminated by faith) and nonreligious knowing
(all other forms of knowing or “reason”). What differentiates them is the
object known (either revealed or known by human observation) and the
knowing subject (the human being using faith-filled reason or the human
being using ordinary reason). If a person has faith and is in love with
God, he or she, when exploring the objects of revelation, can discern
things not visible to a nonreligious knower. A nonreligious knower might
theoretically know about God’s existence, the immortality of the soul,
and, say, the natural law but not about the Trinity, the divinity of Christ,
or the sacraments.
The third point is that Vatican I states that faith is a divine gift enabling
reason to perceive, understand, come to know, and put into practice the
mysteries it cannot exhaust:
39. In defending the ability of human reason to know God, the Church is
expressing her confidence in the possibility of speaking about him to
all men and with all men, and therefore of dialogue with other religions,
with philosophy and science, as well as with unbelievers and atheists.
40. Since our knowledge of God is limited, our language about him is
equally so. We can name God only by taking creatures as our starting
point, and in accordance with our limited human ways of knowing and
thinking.
. . .
42. God transcends all creatures. We must therefore continually purify our
language of everything in it that is limited, image-bound or imperfect,
if we are not to confuse our image of God—“the inexpressible, the in
comprehensible, the invisible, the ungraspable” [Liturgy of St. John
Chrysostom, Anaphora]—with our human representations. Our human
words always fall short of the mystery of God.
43. Admittedly, in speaking about God like this, our language is using
human modes of expression; nevertheless it really does attain to God
himself, though unable to express him in his infinite simplicity. Likewise,
we must recall that “between Creator and creature no similitude can
be expressed without implying an even greater dissimilitude” [Lateran
Council IV: DS 806]; and that “concerning God, we cannot grasp what
he is, but only what he is not, and how other beings stand in relation
to him.” (CCC 39-40, 42-43)
mind, and God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict
truth. (Dei Filius, DS 3017/ND 133)
The argument is from Aquinas: it is the same God who grounds all truth,
whether secular or divine, and the truth is ultimately one. Where a con
tradiction becomes apparent this is because, Dei Filius claims, either
dogmas have not been interpreted properly or understood authentically,
or a flawed scientific or critical theory is being proposed as certain:
Not only can there be no conflict between faith and reason, but they
also support each other, since right reason demonstrates the founda
tions of faith and, illumined by its light, pursues the understanding
of divine things, while faith frees and protects reason from errors and
provides it with manifold insights. (Dei Filius, DS 3019/ND 135)
This is why, the dogmatic constitution adds, the church promotes all the
sound activities of human reason such as science, medicine, the arts,
culture, and scholarship:
It is therefore far removed from the truth to say that the Church
opposes the study of human arts and sciences; on the contrary, she
supports and promotes them in many ways. She does not ignore or
despise the benefits that human life derives from them. Indeed, she
confesses that as they have their origin from God who is the Lord
of knowledge (cf. 1 Samuel 2:3), so too, if rightly pursued, they lead
to God with the help of his grace. (Dei Filius, DS 3019/ND 135)
Nor does the Church in any way forbid that these sciences, each in
its sphere, should make use of their own principles and of the
method proper to them. While, however, acknowledging this just
Theology 15
freedom, she seriously warns lest they fall into error by going con
trary to divine doctrine, or, stepping beyond their own limits, they
enter into the sphere of faith and create confusion. (Gaudium et Spes
36)
and articulate his teaching. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains
this by noting that faith is not an isolated act. The Catholic Christian is
first and foremost a member of the church (CCC 166-69). This is because,
it says, the church is the primordial believer bearing, nourishing, and
sustaining the faith of the individual, the one through, with, and in Christ,
and animated by the Holy Spirit, who, on behalf of humanity, responds
to the Father, saying “I believe.” Therefore the credo of an individual
Christian—the credo of the individual theologian—always participates
in the universal church’s credo or act of faith. So, summing all this up,
we could say that for the theologian to do theology in the sense being
envisaged here, she or he must have a faith commitment that is threefold:
divine (faith in God), Christian (faith in Jesus Christ), and ecclesial (faith
in the church as the divinely authorized guarantor of faith).
Dei Filius envisaged God bestowing a double gift: revelation in Christ
(fides quae) and the faith needed for the human subject to accept it and
adhere to it (fides qua). Faith, then, according to Vatican I, is a gift freely
given by God that humans are always free to accept or reject. It is ever
true: “you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink.” The
gift of faith—theological, christological, and ecclesial—gives rise to the
ology, faith enabling believers to perceive, penetrate, know, accept, and
put into practice the revelation God has given. Faith enables believers
to have certainty about the truths God has revealed, and faith helps them
penetrate the sacred mysteries, although always with a limited under
standing. Faith as God’s continuing gift helps theologians to advance in
understanding, to grow in knowledge, and to conform themselves ever
more perfectly to what God is revealing. This is not to say that faith is
blind. As Dei Filius suggested by speaking of a relationship between faith
and reason, faith needs to be critical since it involves the use of reason
with all its capacities, procedures, and hesitancy. Reason makes use of
all its usual exigencies, thus enabling theology to engage in a constant
critical exchange as the theologian reflects on God’s revelation and its
meaning.
If, in the concept of theology as envisaged here, faith is required for
doing theology, it could still be argued that some of the tasks theologians
perform require a less explicit faith or personal commitment. They could
be done by anyone with the requisite academic credentials. For instance,
faith is not so much a requirement for textual research, work on the
sacred languages, archaeology, and church history as for the tasks of
fundamental theology, Christology, ecclesiology, liturgy, and pastoral
theology. In some disciplines of theology having faith might be a great
18 Philosophy and Catholic Theology
help in motivating one’s research, yet many of the expected tasks could
be carried out regardless of the theologian’s own personal faith commit
ment. However, there are clearly other disciplines, such as liturgical,
moral, and pastoral theology, where one could show that it is precisely
the creative application of the theologian’s faith commitment that deter
mines the expectations, directs the project, and shapes the outcomes.
Can faith be “proved”? Can theology prove that the mysteries of faith
are true? Theology, in the sense discussed here, has its limits, because
faith, as Dei Filius argued, is a divine gift. Reason, therefore, could not
implant faith or gain it as the conclusion to an argument. Rather, reason
“stands underneath” faith and submits to it. Consequently, theology
would be unable to prove the truth of faith by operating in the same
inductive manner as the empirical sciences, by an appeal to data. On the
other hand, it could be argued that it is the task of theology, particularly
those branches of theology connected with apologetics, to demonstrate
the mysteries of faith or even faith itself to be reason-able. To believe
could be shown to be the most attentive, intelligent, reasonable, practical,
and charitable response to the mystery and gift of human existence.
be known about God through the use of the natural light of human
reason but without revelation, that is, through critical reflection on the
universe, the created order, human history, and the course of events. In
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, spirituality, philosophy, and canon
law also became distinct fields or areas of theology. In the eighteenth
century modern historical-critical methods of scriptural exegesis turned
biblical studies into a clearly discrete department of theology; subse
quently the specialization of church history has also become a separate
discipline. Today theology incorporates a large number of particular
studies, divided either into disciplines such as dogma, biblical studies,
spirituality, morals, liturgy, pastoral theology, patristics, and so on, or
into treatises such as Christology, ecclesiology, revelation, Trinity, crea
tion, grace, the virtues, and the sacraments. It often adopts historical
(sometimes called “positive”) and systematic (sometimes called “specu
lative” or hermeneutical) approaches.
How, then, might theology as an academic discipline be related to
religion proper, the realm of revelation and faith? And on the other hand,
how might theology be related to other related forms of critical scholar
ship such as religious studies?
Let us now turn to the history of theology and develop some further
implications of our working definition of theology. The aim is not to offer
a complete history or chronology of theology, but rather to discern in
the evolution of theology what might be called its four principal “dif
ferentiations”: thematic, doctrinal, systematic, and historical, reflecting
the broadly different concerns theologians have had at different times
in history.
In the early church the Fathers explored extensively the Divine Object
of faith, that is, God himself, the person and nature of Christ, and the
relations within the Blessed Trinity. These concerns were reflected in the
great trinitarian and christological councils of the church in antiquity,
which laid out in the creeds the principal tenets of orthodox doctrine. In
the Middle Ages theologians focused more on matters of virtue and the
moral life of the Christian. Many of the questions Aquinas tackles in the
Summa Theologiae are about how to live a good life and reach the reward
of heaven. Later, after the Protestant Reformation and the Council of
Trent (1545–63), Catholic theology tended to concentrate on ecclesiology,
that is, on the structure of the church and its authority, defending tradi
tional doctrine from the critiques of the Reformers. It also gave attention
during this period to the nature of the sacraments, as theologians devel
oped many of the new medieval insights into liturgy and worship, such
as the distinction between the natural and the supernatural or between
matter and form. In the twentieth century, with its two world wars and
the huge advances in science, medicine, and technology, pressing human
issues have come to the fore. Consequently, it could be said that theology
24 Philosophy and Catholic Theology
Figure 2
Theology 25
Historical
Systematic
Doctrinal
Experiential
Figure 2a
Theology as Experience
The phrase “theology as the thematization of lived experience” comes
from Terry Tekippe (d. 2005) and his fine introduction to theology titled
Theology: Love’s Question (1991). His point is that theology is an attentive,
intelligent, and reasoned reflection on experience, the thematization of
the Christian’s lived ecclesial experience of Jesus Christ and the Gospel.
Christians reflect on their faith in Christ, what it means, and how to live
it in daily life, and they articulate their understanding and reflections in
writing, music, speech, art, poetry, and other media. In this sense all
Christians do theology insofar as they reflect on and attempt to express
their Christian faith.
Theology as an account of Christian experience is a continuous feature
of ecclesial life and activity. People meditate on the Scriptures, the liturgy,
and the sources of their faith. They write about all this and they produce
articles and books. Interestingly, the key practitioners have varied from
era to era, and their “products” can be said to have varied according to
need and intended audience. In the early church the key theologians
were the apostles, evangelists, and writers of the New Testament. They
reflected on their experience of Christ and wrote it down in order to
communicate it to others in forms such as the gospels and epistles. These
first writers were followed by a group of sub-apostolic Fathers including
Clement of Rome (d. 99) and the author of the Didache, an early treatise
with instructions on how to live the Christian life, sometimes called The
Teaching of the Twelve Apostles.
In the second century the principal theologians were the philosophers,
thinkers, and apologists who mainly inhabited the eastern Mediterranean.
These included Justin Martyr (d. 165) and Tertullian (d. ca. 220). They
26 Philosophy and Catholic Theology
made a defense (Gk. apologia) of their Christian faith against both Juda
ism and the Roman empire. They tried to show how Christianity was
the fulfillment of Judaism and the ancient prophecies, and distinguished
the Gospel from the thought and social life of the Roman Empire.
In the patristic period (200–800) the main practitioners of theology
became the bishops who preached homilies, taught and catechized the
faithful, and defended orthodox beliefs from the challenges of heresy
and other misunderstandings. Many of their homilies have been incor
porated into the Office of Readings in the Liturgy of the Hours.
In the Middle Ages, monks became the principal practitioners of the
ology. They studied and reflected prayerfully on the Scriptures and also
on the homilies of the Fathers. This practice of lectio divina, a meditative
reading and reflection, gave birth in time to a welter of monastic com
mentaries on Scripture.
In the High Middle Ages the key theologians were the teachers of the
monastic schools (“scholastics”). Some of these schools became Europe’s
first universities. They endeavored to systematize the scriptural and
patristic sources into an overall and coherent account of the Christian
faith.
In the Tridentine era, between the Council of Trent (1545–63) and
Vatican II (1962–65), the chief theologians were the seminary professors
and Catholic university teachers whose primary task was to educate
clergy and religious in the doctrines of Catholicism. They taught students
how to defend Catholic beliefs from the challenges of the Protestant
Reformers. This imbued all Tridentine Catholic thought with an apolo
getic slant. This polemical slant was also mirrored in the Reformation
communities, where the key theologians were the scriptural exegetes,
teaching ministers how to interpret the Scriptures properly and how to
defend their interpretations against Roman Catholic apologists. However,
in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries both Catholic and Protestant
theology began to feel the chill winds of modernity, particularly modern
philosophy, modern empirical science, and modern critical scholarship.
All these posed radical questions and challenges to Christian faith,
especially to its claim to a divine revelation in history. This endowed
apologetics in the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century,
in both Catholic and Protestant or Reformed circles, with an additionally
defensive twist.
Today, in the post–Vatican II period, the challenges of modernity and
postmodernity are the subject of theology. Theology has become a largely
lay-led discipline concerned with the meaning of faith within a secular,
pluralist culture. Moreover, the rise of social justice and ecological con
Theology 27
Theology as Doctrine
Besides a concern with experience, theology from early on has also had
to address the question of truth. There are many and various theological
opinions, expressions, and viewpoints, yet when push comes to shove,
what is the true, orthodox faith of the church? What do Christians believe
for sure? Which is the true belief?
All human beings have a critical faculty of judgment. When viewing,
reading, or listening to the claims of another, we ask: Is it so? Is this true?
Thus Christians individually and the church as a whole sift the many
writings, views, and opinions of theologians. Sometimes in a solemn
manner, the church exercises the critical faculty of judgment, determin
ing whether or not the writings under discussion express the true faith
of the church. This process can be seen operating informally even within
the New Testament, and then within the early church as it dealt with the
philosophies and pagan theologies extant in the Roman Empire. This
process led in time to the formal emergence of doctrine and dogma as
theological features in the life and history of the church. Such doctrine
and dogma can be seen in the statements of the early creeds, the symbols
and disciplinary decisions of the councils.
This magisterial strand within theology emerged with the first ecu
menical council of the church, the First Council of Nicea in 325, although
by modern standards it would barely be described as a synod. Never
theless, the magisterial strand—the need for the church to teach authori
tatively what its faith is and to differentiate truth from falsehood—has
grown and developed ever since, particularly in the second millennium
and in recent times. A glance at a collection of documents and pronounce
ments such as the Denzinger-Schönmetzer Enchiridion symbolorum defi-
nitionum et declarationum de rebus fidei et morum or Neuner and Dupuis’
The Christian Faith in the Doctrinal Documents of the Catholic Church dem
onstrates this development. Indeed, since Vatican II there have been
28 Philosophy and Catholic Theology
Theology as System
In the High Middle Ages another differentiation emerged within the
ology as it became a critical academic discipline. The expanding monastic
schools, now emerging as the first universities, began to espouse new
pedagogical methods reflecting a mentality that sought to bring order and
system to learning and knowledge so as to yield a deeper understanding
of the Christian faith and how it was structured.
The issues faced by theologians in the Middle Ages were arguably
twofold. First, how did the many and varied truths of the Christian faith
fit together? After all, the sources sometimes appeared to be full of con
tradictions and conflicts. The sayings of Scripture were not always coher
ent: how might the precept of Jesus in Matthew 5:44 (“love your enemies”)
be reconciled with what Jesus says later in the same gospel about those
who might harm one of the little ones (Matt 18:6: “it would be better for
you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were
drowned in the depth of the sea”)? In much the same way, the sayings
of the Fathers appeared to be inconsistent. Cyprian of Carthage (d. 258),
for example, insisted that there was no salvation outside the church
(Letters, lxxii), and this was also the opinion of Augustine and many
others, yet Justin Martyr had argued that just as devout Jews could be
saved by following the Law of Moses, so those who died before Christ
could be saved by following the natural law of goodness written in their
hearts (Trypho, 45). Furthermore, the sayings of the Fathers appeared at
times to contradict the Scriptures. For instance, how might Augustine’s
somewhat pessimistic view about the fate of unbaptized babies be
Theology 29
armonized with 1 Timothy 2:3-5, which states that God wants all to be
h
saved? The scholastic mentality wanted to reconcile, bring together, and
systematize all these real or apparent conflicts in the authorities. The
high medieval mind-set was encapsulated by Peter Abelard (d. 1142) in
his provocative Sic et Non (1120). It was a mentality that raised multiple
questions about the number and class of the sacraments and the condi
tions for receiving them, the fruits of the Holy Spirit, the nature and list
of capital sins, the multiple forms of grace, the key works of mercy, and
so on. It was prompted more than anything by the new theological
method of the quaestio, which we will examine in a later chapter.
A second concern in the medieval period was with the moral life and
how to reach heaven. How do humans live a good life? What do the
truths of faith actually mean for the way men and women should live
their lives? The hope of heaven and the fear of hell in an era of short life
expectancy lent urgency to the Christian life. Thus many of the questions
addressed by Aquinas in the Summa Theologiae concern the acquisition
of virtue.
This medieval question about the good life and how to live virtuously
anticipated in some respects the modern systematic questions about the
relationship of religion and theology to culture and everyday living, the
meaning of Christian discipleship and how faith and theology might
leaven and baptize other domains of human knowledge. In the high
medieval period faith infused culture, and yet, once theology began to
be differentiated from spirituality and philosophy, the relationship of
faith to other domains began to become distinct, then fragmented, and
finally compartmentalized. This process was sealed by the new discoveries
and directions of science, scholarship, and philosophy after the Enlight
enment. In modern times the systematic differentiation within theology
raises this issue of the relationship of religion and theology to the natural
and human sciences, medicine, the arts, economics, fashion and media,
international relations, poverty and injustice, environmental concerns,
and all the other diverse domains and issues of contemporary living.
What might the doctrines of Christianity say to the modern world? How
do Christians express meaningfully the wisdom of the Christian faith in
a secular-pluralist world? What in turn might the world, in which the
Holy Spirit is at work, be saying to the church? The systematic differen
tiation in theology, which emerged and developed from the medieval
era onward—that is, theology as a system and as a systematized body
of knowledge—is crucial today if the meaning of the Christian faith and
of religion is to be proclaimed to modern culture.
30 Philosophy and Catholic Theology
Theology as Historical
Finally, theology today, which we have argued here is experiential,
systematic, and doctrinal, is also historical. Since the eighteenth century
and the rise of modern critical scholarship, particularly historical scholar
ship and the human and social sciences, theologians, although long re
sistant to the implications of all this, have become increasingly aware
that the new or modern world is very different from the world of the Bible,
the early church, the Fathers, and the medieval monastics. Moreover, as
Christianity spread overseas to the New World, to Asia, and to Africa,
cultural diversity was added to historical difference. The issue of historical
and cultural awareness is nowadays unremarkable and second nature,
but within theology, historical and cultural concerns have made their
mark only in relatively recent times. This is an aspect of what Bernard
Lonergan and others have called the modern sense of history or “his
torical consciousness.” Modern philosophy reveals the historically and
culturally conditioned nature of all truth, thus highlighting the complex
relationship between truth and history, permanence and change.
Historical scholarship has had an enormous impact on every domain
of twentieth- and twenty-first-century theology. Enormous advances
have taken place in the study of the historical sources of theology, notably
in Scripture, liturgy, and patristics, and these have powered various
renewal movements, furnishing a deeper and richer awareness of the
contexts that gave rise to the sources Christians rely on. All areas of
theology today are permeated with a historical awareness, arguably
absent from the neoscholastic theology that dominated Catholic thought
prior to Vatican II. Things were different in the past, and they might be
quite different in the future. Historical consciousness thus poses a num
ber of challenges, including an acute awareness of how the church itself,
its practices, traditions, and beliefs have changed and developed over
time and varied from place to place. How can the Christian faith be the
same, true for all time, and yet paradoxically vary, change, and develop?
In particular, historical consciousness raises the thorny issue of doctrinal
change and development and the need to differentiate what is central
from what is peripheral. What is permanently true? What is changeable?
For instance, if one pope has stated that women may not be admitted to
ordination to the priesthood, is this a permanent truth that binds succes
sor popes, or might things be different again under a different papacy?
Not all Christians are comfortable with recognizing the role of history
in theology. Roman Catholicism in general gives this historical differen
tiation within theology a qualified acceptance. It could be argued that
Eastern Orthodoxy gives it a qualified rejection, preferring to inhabit the
Theology 31
Dei Verbum 7–10 then outlined what in effect are the primary sources
of the revelation given in Jesus Christ, namely, the Bible, the tradition of
32 Philosophy and Catholic Theology
the church (the church’s teaching, customs and practices, life and people,
the sacred liturgy, and the witness of the saints), and the teachings of the
magisterium, this last being at the service of the Word of God expressed
in Scripture and tradition. This triadal relationship between Scripture,
tradition, and magisterium, proposed by the council and based on the
previous teaching of the councils of Trent and Vatican I but developed
much more extensively in Dei Verbum, mediates to believers today the
teaching revealed by Christ. Scripture, tradition, and the church’s mag
isterium, therefore, in the vision of Dei Verbum, form the primary media
of revelation and the primary sources for theological reflection.
The triad of Scripture-tradition-magisterium, however, must be con
textualized within the whole life of the church. It is the church in its
totality that manifests and mediates the person of Jesus Christ, his teach
ing, life, and grace to the world today. According to the council’s Con
stitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium (1963), the place
par excellence where that takes place is in the liturgy (10), which is the
work of Christ the high priest (7):
From the liturgy, therefore, and especially from the Eucharist, grace
is poured forth upon us as from a fountain, and the sanctification of
[men and women] in Christ and the glorification of God to which all
other activities of the Church are directed, as toward their end, are
achieved with maximum effectiveness. (Sacrosanctum Concilium 10)
incarnate, lived, died, and rose from the dead at a particular time and
place in history, all these secondary sources, it is argued, are normed by
the primary sources (Scripture, tradition, and magisterium).
According to Dei Verbum, then, the Bible and the church’s tradition,
articulated, guarded, preserved, and applied by the magisterium, con
stitute the primary sources that transmit the content of divine revelation
to Christians today. These sources form the basic infrastructure of
Catholic theology. It is worth pausing for a moment longer to examine
this triad of Scripture-tradition-magisterium, since it gives method and
shape to Catholic theology.
The importance of the issue of the sources of theology becomes particu
larly apparent in ecumenical dialogues. Interestingly, the 1888 Lambeth
Conference of the Anglican Communion came close to the future posi
tion of Vatican II when it approved the so-called Lambeth Quadrilateral,
which articulated the four essential principles for a reunited Christian
church: the Scriptures, the creeds (Apostles and Nicene), the two sacra
ments of baptism and Eucharist, and the historic episcopate. Modern
Anglican commentators often speak of the importance of Scripture and
tradition, although little of the function of an ecclesiastical magisterium.
Liberal Anglican theologians have tended to speak of Scripture, tradition,
and right reason or Scripture, tradition, and experience. Evangelical and
other Reformed theologians follow the traditional Lutheran stance of
sola scriptura (Scripture alone), although they would acknowledge tradi
tions of interpretation of the Scriptures or sets of doctrinal principles
that regulate how the Bible is to be interpreted.
In all the ecumenical dialogues the same sets of questions can be asked:
What is the Bible? Why and how is the Bible authoritative? What is the
relationship of the Bible to the church? How can the Bible be applied to
modern problems? How is the Bible’s meaning to be interpreted authen
tically? Moreover, every Christian community has traditions, and this
leads to a further set of questions: What is tradition? What authority do
tradition and the traditions of the churches have? How changeable is
tradition in the face of new needs and new questions, such as the ordina
tion of women? Finally, there is a third set of questions: What is the re
lationship between Scripture and tradition? How are Scripture and
tradition related to church authority? How does church authority relate
to me, my experience, my personal opinions?
Catholics see in Dei Verbum 7–10, the contents of which are neatly
summarized and expressed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church 80–95,
a much-discussed series of authoritative principles that guide theological
34 Philosophy and Catholic Theology
“Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, then, are bound closely together
and communicate one with the other. For both of them, flowing out
from the same divine well-spring, come together in some fashion to
form one thing and move towards the same goal.”* (CCC 80)
The apostles entrusted the “Sacred deposit” of the faith (the depositum
fidei),† contained in Sacred Scripture and Tradition, to the whole of
the Church. . . .
“The task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God,
whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition, has been
entrusted to the living, teaching office of the church alone. Its author
ity in this matter is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ.” ‡ (CCC
84–85)
The magisterium, however, is not above this deposit in the sense of being
in charge of it but is its servant. Like every Christian, those who constitute
the members of the magisterium—the pope and bishops, and the priests,
deacons and others who collaborate with them—are under the Word,
which they are to receive with open faith and trust:
* DV 9.
†
DV 10 § 1; cf. 1 Tim 6:20; 2 Tim 1:12-14 (Vulg.).
‡
DV 10 § 2.
Theology 35
had given rise to the Bible and the members of the church wrote it, but
later the practice and authority of the church established which books
should be included or excluded.
The first serious challenge to the belief that the Bible, the tradition,
and the church were intrinsically and reciprocally interrelated occurred
during the Reformation. Despite the decadence of the church during the
late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, this was a period of renewal
in biblical scholarship. Far-reaching and complex questions began to be
posed about where certain doctrines and ecclesiastical practices, not
explicitly mentioned in the Bible, had originated. For instance, where
did the Bible speak of purgatory, the use of indulgences, the sacrifice of
the Mass, the power of the pope, or the intercession of the saints? Many
Catholic theologians at the time justified these beliefs and practices by
appealing to oral traditions and liturgical customs the apostles had given
to the church by word of mouth. They appealed to such texts as John
21:25 (“But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one
of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not
contain the books that would be written”). Bishop John Fisher (d. 1535)
asserted that the church’s teachings were contained partly (partim) in
the Bible and partly (partim) in unwritten apostolic traditions that had
been handed down within the church. However, Luther and the Reform
ers argued that many of these traditions, doctrines, and practices were
superstitious. The church had invented them and added them to what
is in the Bible. The church had to be purified by a return to the basics,
and so Luther rejected the traditional common teaching in favor of Scrip
ture as the only source of revelation (sola scriptura). The Bible alone, in
his view, contained everything necessary for our salvation. Johann Eck
(d. 1543), who tried to rally the Catholic forces against Luther, argued
that the church was a reality more fundamental than the Scriptures. The
Bible could only be understood within an ecclesial context. It was not
self-interpreting; there were many disputed issues and such problems
needed a divinely mandated authority to deliberate and establish the
correct interpretation.
Many of Eck’s arguments were echoed by the Council of Trent, which
stated:
[The] Gospel is contained in the written books and unwritten tradi
tions which have come down to us, having been received by the
apostles from the mouth of Christ himself or from the apostles by
the dictation of the Holy Spirit, and have been transmitted as it were
from hand to hand. (Council of Trent, Decree of Reception of the Sacred
Books and Apostolic Traditions DS 1501/ND 210)
Theology 37
Trent then added that the only authentic and authoritative interpreter
of the Bible was the church and anyone reading the Bible must do so
without conflict with the traditional understanding (DS 1507). Note that
the council here was speaking of the Gospel as a primary reality before
its written expression. Note too the council’s carefully worded formula
that the Gospel was handed down “in written books and unwritten
traditions.” This statement was in fact a compromise. The draft version
of the text used the phrase partim . . . partim but the council fathers
settled for et: the Gospel had been transmitted through both written
books and unwritten traditions. Nevertheless, thanks to the Counter-
Reformation catechesis of Peter Canisius (d. 1597), Robert Bellarmine
(d. 1621), and others, the partim . . . partim formula gained ascendancy.
If a doctrine such as purgatory could not be found in the Bible, it must
have come from an unwritten apostolic tradition. Indeed, in the nine
teenth century some Catholic theologians even espoused the view that
the Gospel was contained entirely in tradition and only partly in Scrip
ture (totaliter-partim).
This debate was given new impetus in the mid-twentieth century, in
the period of theological ferment following the solemn definition in 1950
by Pope Pius XII of the dogma of the assumption (that the Blessed Virgin
Mary at the end of her earthly life was assumed body and soul into
heaven). While many would acknowledge that doctrines not explicitly
found in the Bible, such as the Trinity or the two natures of Christ, were
more or less implicitly contained therein, where was Mary’s assumption?
Moreover, in this case even tradition was not free from difficulty. Was the
only basis for this doctrine, therefore, the widespread popular devotion
of the faithful, now definitized by an act of papal authority?
Dei Verbum, which underwent several major revisions before it was
promulgated in 1965, settled few of these disputed issues. In fact, the
more innovative theologians of the 1950s and the Vatican II period such
as Joseph Ratzinger (b. 1927), Yves Congar (d. 1995), Karl Rahner (d. 1984),
and Henri de Lubac (d. 1991) subscribed to the view that all the doctrines
necessary for salvation were contained implicitly in Scripture, although
Scripture and tradition should be read together to be certain. But like
the Council of Trent previously, Dei Verbum seems to sidestep the dispute
about the dogmatic content of Scripture and tradition, preferring to speak
instead of their integral and reciprocal connection: they both come from
“one and the same divine well-spring,” form “one thing,” and move
toward the same goal (Dei Verbum 9: cf. CCC 80).
The relationship of Scripture, tradition, and magisterium is a lively
issue relevant not only to Catholic but to all Christian theology. It is also
38 Philosophy and Catholic Theology
Others have argued that Anselm was making the assumption that the
true faith can be known in its content and scope. Today, they say, there
is a pluralism of beliefs, with many different churches and other religious
systems present. The huge growth in modern critical scholarship has
raised complex questions, and so the scope and content of theology are
no longer self-evident as they were for Anselm. “The Faith” has itself
become a quaestio disputata (“disputed question”). Furthermore, could it
be said that the marriage of theology with philosophy implied in Anselm’s
definition is too narrow? Contemporary theology has to dialogue with
many other disciplines besides, if it is to express the Christian message
adequately and constructively to a world facing many pressing problems,
including poverty, women’s concerns, environmental issues, and globali
zation. Theology, therefore, has to engage not only with philosophy but
also with the human sciences of anthropology, economics, psychology, and
politics, with medicine and the natural sciences. Indeed, there is a two-way
exchange, since the human sciences arguably need theology in order to
dialogue with human values and to address such essentially human
experiences as death, sin, morality, hope, love, and happiness. To give an
example: to address guilt, psychology must necessarily intrude upon the
domain of moral theology. Where the human sciences circumnavigate or
even deny these dimensions of the human being they implicitly espouse
reductionist views of being human. Consequently, it could be argued
that in order to integrate the human sciences into theology in a coherent
and critical manner, a process that de facto is often attempted, we require
not merely a new definition of theology, broader than that of St. Anselm,
but also a new way of doing theology, a new method.
One thinker who has given explicit and extensive consideration to
these problems is Bernard Lonergan. In his Method in Theology (1972),
Lonergan is said to have gone beyond Anselm in a manner that retains
40 Philosophy and Catholic Theology
the intellectual dimension Anselm privileges but captures better the raft
of activities modern theology is called upon to perform. Lonergan offers
a description of theology’s function, what it does. For him theology
“mediates between a cultural matrix and the significance and role of a
religion within that matrix” (Method in Theology, xi). This new definition
requires some thought, but it would seem to be very helpful for Catholic
theology. By describing theology as a mediation between religion and
culture Lonergan means essentially an intellectual exchange, but the
exchange need not be limited to this, since his account would wish to
take seriously all the other dimensions of the human person such as
experience, decision, practical action, and love (in older language: the
intellect, the will, and the heart). By culture here he meant the meanings
and values attached to the social, the social being simply a way of living,
the communal patterns of living and operating, such that culture is to
society as soul is to body. To define theology, therefore, as a mediation
between religion and culture would be to speak of a two-way critical
conversation between them. The conversation is not just between faith
as a set of truths to be communicated and reason as a set of intellectual
activities for receiving and understanding them, but a conversation and
exchange at many different levels: head, will, and heart, theory and
practice, involving different realms and adapted to differing media.
THEOLOGY AS A MEDIATION
BETWEEN RELIGION AND CULTURE
Religion Culture
Figure 3
For Lonergan the priority would be on the side of religion: in this case
the divine revelation given in Jesus Christ. Religion seeks to communicate
itself—its reality, traditions, and customs, its values and activities, its mean
Theology 41
Is Theology a Science?
As faith seeking understanding, as a systematic study of God’s self-
revelation in Christ and the human reception of that revelation, and as
a mediation between religion and culture, theology is an intrinsically
rational endeavor, an activity involving the use of human reason. But in
what manner? How might the rationality of theology be characterized?
Could theology be called a science? Or is theology more like an art? Is it
a form of critical scholarship, analogous to the study of, say, philosophy
or history?
In the Summa Theologiae, Aquinas asked the question whether theology
was a science. The first objection in this article asserted that theology
could not be called a science, because science is said to proceed from
human reason, whereas theology proceeds from faith. Aquinas’s re
sponse to this objection is illuminating:
sciences, scholarship does not generally seek to reach hard and fast
principles and laws, but rather to understand the meaning or intention,
the truth and falsehood, the right or wrong of particular statements,
trends, and actions.
Theology is not a science in the sense of an empirical science because
it does not circumscribe its data in the way the empirical sciences do.
However, theology is similar to the empirical sciences in that it is rational
discourse methodically developed. Without limiting itself to the data of
sense or the data of consciousness, it nevertheless uses human reason
with all its native capabilities. Moreover, like the modern human and
natural sciences, theology too is scientific in that it adopts methods based
on the self-same cognitional operations the empirical sciences are based
on: data-hypothesis-verification, while adding to this a method for
evaluation. Its methodology, as we shall see later, can be inductive, as a
reflection on the data of consciousness and experience, but it can also be
deductive, as faith seeking understanding.
Theology is most similar to critical scholarship: for example, philosophy
and history. Like all scholarly endeavors it has its own mode of discourse,
a technical terminology, and methods of demonstration. It endeavors to
relate itself ultimately to the data of consciousness and to internal, per
sonal realities. Together with research and interpretation, it also includes
judgment and evaluation.
But unlike both empirical science and critical scholarship, theology has
as its specific focus the data of divine revelation: God, the revelation of
Christ, being a religious person and a member of a religious community.
This data is communicated partly as an “outer word,” that is, through
the transmission of certain historical data about Christ and his teaching,
and partly as an “inner Word,” that is, through the internal religious
experience of the presence and action of the Holy Spirit, making a person
capable of hearing and open to the Gospel. The data of revelation—the
gift of faith—broaden, deepen, and transfigure human horizons. Beyond
both science and scholarship, and without losing the rationality of both,
theology views the data of sense and the data of consciousness in relation
to—as shot through with—divine revelation. Faith is the “added extra”
that makes theology transcend the worlds the empirical sciences study
and the worlds critical scholarship studies, to study human beings in
their relationship to God. It is this realm of faith that gives theology its
specificity (see figure 4) and makes it sui generis, unique. Theology, it
could be argued, “sublates” or subsumes both science and scholarship
and becomes in itself the most general and comprehensive, the most
profound and fundamental of all studies.
Theology 45
DATA OF SENSE
DATA OF CONSCIOUSNESS
DATA OF REVELATION
(coincident with the realms of consciousness and sense)
Figure 4
46 Philosophy and Catholic Theology
1870 Vatican I
LEO XIII Neoscholasticism
1879 Aeterni Patris
(imposed Thomism)
1891 Rerum Novarum
(first social encyclical)
Transcendental Thomism
PIUS X
Antimodernism
PIUS XI
Liturgical
PIUS XII
Patristic
Biblical
1943 Divino Afflante Spiritu
(re biblical scholarship)
JOHN XXIII
PAUL VI
1970 Novus Ordo Missae
Crises in Moral Theology
Liberation Theologies
Various Thomisms
JOHN PAUL II
Biblical Studies
1992 Catechism
1993 Veritatis Splendor
1995 Evangelium Vitae
BENEDICT XVI
Figure 5
Chapter Two
Recent Theology
47