Christ the Center
In his post below Paul Moses helpfully links to the transcript of Pope Benedict’s Catechesis on Saint Bonaventure at last Wednesday’s general audience. This is the latest of his reflections on great ecclesial figures of the Middle Ages.
Here is the passage that I found of particular interest:
This does not mean that the Church is immobile, fixed in the past and that novelties cannot be exercised in her. “Opera Christi non deficiunt, sed proficiunt,” the works of Christ do not go backward, do not fail, but progress, says the saint in the letter “De tribus quaestionibus.” Thus St. Bonaventure formulates explicitly the idea of progress, and this is a novelty in comparison with the Fathers of the Church and a great part of his contemporaries. For St. Bonaventure, Christ is no longer, as he was for the Fathers of the Church, the end, but the center of history; history does not end with Christ, but a new period begins. Another consequence is the following: prevailing up to that moment was the idea that the Fathers of the Church were at the absolute summit of theology, all the following generations could only be their disciples. Even St. Bonaventure recognizes the Fathers as teachers for ever, but the phenomenon of St. Francis gave him the certainty that the richness of the word of Christ is inexhaustible and that also new lights can appear in the new generations. The uniqueness of Christ also guarantees novelties and renewal in all the periods of history.
Certainly, the Franciscan Order — so he stresses — belongs to the Church of Jesus Christ, to the Apostolic Church, and cannot build itself on a utopian spiritualism. But, at the same time, the novelty of such an order is valid in comparison with classic monasticism, and St. Bonaventure — as I said in the preceding catechesis — defended this novelty against the attacks of the secular clergy of Paris. The Franciscans do not have a fixed monastery, they can be present everywhere to proclaim the Gospel. Precisely the break with stability, characteristic of monasticism, in favor of a new flexibility, restored to the Church her missionary dynamism.
I presume that the next figure to be discussed by the Pope is Saint Thomas Aquinas. Stay tuned.
on March 12th, 2010 at 10:53 am
Hopefully, most of you who have been blogging on the Boulder, CO situation will be contributing on this thread.
Thanks, Fr. Imbelli – his statement that the “church is not immobile” seems, IMO, to directly link to our discussion about the Boulder school decision. In some of the responses, “natural law” is cited as the foundation for this decision.
May I suggest that my concerns about the Boulder decision have to do with the approach of many to the “hermeneutic of natural law.” Moral theology was basically removed from any discussion at Vatican II. The church today continues to interpret (use a hermeneutic) whose foundation is based philosophically and theologically upon interpretations that are centuries old, outdated, and do not reflect on the “signs of the times.”
Many commonly accept the fact that moral theology and its interpretation needs to experience a “Copernican Revolution” in order to best convey or, in the words of Bonaventure, progress to better reflect the people of God’s experience, wisdom, and receptivity. Many church historians would cite the decisions around moral theology over the last 50 years as a reflection of an understanding that the truths of the church can NOT change but completely miss the fact that the church is NOT immobile; it progresses. Especially in moral theology, the church is at its best when it lives in the “both-and” rather than acts as a legal entity and lives in a “black-white” world.
Historians have analyzed and explained how the hierarchy (magesterium) were fearful that progress and/or change would convey an impression that morality and its truth were changing; that the past church experience would be questioned or criticized. Within this context of fear, all interpretations and pastoral decisions have basically been put on hold. In the pastoral field, priests/bishops can, at best, try to work around old formulation and use a “band-aid” approach.
This incident in Boulder, CO could learn valuable lessons from the example of Bonaventure and could benefit from a magesterium that valued and used this approach.
on March 12th, 2010 at 11:24 am
In the Weakland autobiography, the author quotes cardinal Rigali asadvising him to be absolutely loyal to the directives of the Poe and Cuia and to build uop that kind of loyalty in his archdiocese.
It strikes me that that’s what we see in Philadelphia (and elsewhere) and what impedes the kind of growth Bill talks about in his post above.
on March 12th, 2010 at 2:01 pm
It is so tiresome when every new thread finds any way possible to connect to a previous (and usually far more hot-button) thread. The first person who can connect Fr Imbelli’s above to abortion or the sex-abuse crisis will get the prize for today.
on March 12th, 2010 at 2:02 pm
What’s the prize? I am sure I can do it.
on March 12th, 2010 at 2:26 pm
Twenty lashes with a wet maniple
on March 12th, 2010 at 3:22 pm
You probably still wear the maniple, correct?
on March 12th, 2010 at 3:25 pm
Only when no one is looking
on March 12th, 2010 at 6:46 pm
At the conference at Fordham downtown in New York on the Sultan and the Saint, Paul pointed out that Francis chose poverty and preached it because when one does not own anything peace is clear since most wars are due to conflicts over possession. Unfortunately, even the Franciscans quickly lost this lesson. Bonaventure certainly did not know poverty. Nor did the Fathers of the Church who are overrated. Yet the argument from authority is always convenient when there is no other cogency present.
Sorry to disturb your quietus Anthony. But remember what Jesus said: “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”
on March 12th, 2010 at 7:04 pm
“The uniqueness of Christ also guarantees novelties and renewal in all the periods of history.”
Maybe I’m just being prickly, but I think there’s a better word than “novelties” that PBXVI could have used. Unless he used it in a pejorative sense, but I don’t think so.
on March 12th, 2010 at 8:29 pm
Bill deH. –
Unless you think there is no such thing as a constant human nature which we all share and whose dignity is the foundation of ethics, I don’t see how you can reject wholesale all of the insights of the ancients, including the insights of the natural law theorists whose aim was to understand human nature and what makes individuals of this species flourish.
Yes, the Catholic natural law theorists over the last 300 years or so have gnerally been uncritica;, close-minded, out-of-touch with experience, and rigid. But the insights of the great NL theorists live on in, for instance, the U. N. Declaration on Human Rights. It was largely drawn up by Maritain and a Lebanese Aristotelian. Yes, there is a lot of bad scholasticism still strangling Catholic moral theory — for instance, the Vatican’s condemnation of contraception. But it’s not because it’s *old* that it’s bad ethics, it’s bad because it’s uncritical, closed-minded, out-of-touch with experience, and rigid. It’s bad because it’s bad :-)
Speaking of the Franciscans as moralists, unlike Aquinas they emphasize the role of the will in ethics and thus loving acts of the will, not intellectual knowledge becomes the highest human activity. This, I think, is a closer to the teachings of Jesus than Aquinas’ is. And Ockham made contributions to the theory of human rights, the separation of church and state, and freedom of speech.
on March 12th, 2010 at 11:42 pm
Mark,
The Pope uses the word “novità” whose sense I think is “newness” rather than “novelties” (which sounds to me more ephemeral).
on March 13th, 2010 at 7:56 am
Father–
Thanks, I think your translation makes more sense, newness fits much better than novelties. The inspiring idea of perpetual renewal reminds me of a man I knew who told me he got better looking every day–he couldn’t wait until tomorrow!
on March 13th, 2010 at 12:42 pm
Unless you think there is no such thing as a constant human nature which we all share and whose dignity is the foundation of ethics, I don’t see how you can reject wholesale all of the insights of the ancients, including the insights of the natural law theorists whose aim was to understand human nature and what makes individuals of this species flourish.
One issue is the understanding of that nature. Are we to believe that the ancients achieved finality or does that understanding evolve? Is there a constant human nature or does it too evolve? How do we judge the truth of an understanding and who gets to pronounce such truths? Is such judgement reserved to the magisterium of the Church or can anyone play?
More to the point, how do we acknowledge the contribution of the ancients without that contribution becoming the dead weight of the past?
Nothing but questions, I’m afraid.
on March 13th, 2010 at 1:45 pm
he Pope uses the word “novità” whose sense I think is “newness” rather than “novelties”
Fr. Imbelli:
Thanks very much for bringing this presentation to our attention!
I looked up the original Italian text (there doesn’t seem to be an official English translation on the Vatican website) and then used several online translation services to check on the meaning of “novita”.
The meaning seems to be stronger than “newness”.
The English translations I found were : novelty, innovation, something new, as in “the latest thing”
And the same is true for the French and German translations:
1. (invenzione) nouveauté (f); innovation (f)
n. neuheit, novität, neuigkeit, ungewohntheit, neue, novum
For instance, Neuheit means novelty, newness, state of being new, innovation, something new, freshness, originality
So to translate “novita” as novelty would seem to be absolutely straight-forward unless “novita” has a technical theological meaning in Italian that is different from the the standard dictionary meaning.
on March 13th, 2010 at 5:25 pm
Fine questions, Antonio, and the history of natural law theories bears out your suggestion that determining just what human nature is, is the biggest problem
But I continue to defend the basic premises of the best of the Aristotelian theories: we must do good (whatever it is), that what is good is what makes human beings flourish, that flourishing is a matter of fulfilling our best capabilities, and that certain things are preconditions to flourishing (life itself, work, food, friendship, acting for the common good, trust . . . ) After life and food the specifications across time of particular goods gets fuzzy, however, especially when choices must be made among goods.
There are two other strains in Thomas’ theory which are sometimes considered the foundation of his theory, only one of which is really Aristotelian.
The first is his claim, along with earlier scholastics, that natural law is ‘written in our hearts’ by God. This, istm, puts the foundations of morality into the affective order (the order of feeling, choosing, loving). it justifies the moral principles by what we *feel* to be right. But this is a notoriously weak foundation– ultimately it allows us to simply do what we want, and allows the Eichmanns of this world to murder Jews.
The second is his eudemonian theory (also an Aristotelian one) which says that things have natural ends — perfections of capacities whose actualization will lead to happiness. This is the teleological variant of the flourishing theory, but it differs somewhat from that theory because it assumes that each capacity has one perfection, which is simply counter to human experience, and because (paradoxically?) happiness is not always the same thing as thriving morally. At least that’s the way i see it
But in every case the Aristotelian view is based on humqn experience not just on the experience of one person but, theoretically, all or most of us. That “most of us” also presents problems. Sigh.
So i agree. The questions to be answered are still formidable.
on March 13th, 2010 at 5:54 pm
Ann,
the questions are formidable; but you provide, in my view, helpful orientations towards addressing them.
An issue that I ponder, however, is how “tradition dependent” is our perception of “the natural law?” Though in the abstract we might say that it is accessible to the “light of reason.” In the concrete, must reason be tutored in order to perceive rightly?
Sherry,
I take it Mark was understanding “novelty” as something pejorative (that’s why I parsed it as “ephemeral). I have no difficulty with”something new.” Francis was genuinely new, making concrete in a given historical setting, the absolute “novum” who is Christ.
on March 15th, 2010 at 3:02 am
Thank you Ann and Fr. Imbelli.
Though in the abstract we might say that it is accessible to the “light of reason.” In the concrete, must reason be tutored in order to perceive rightly?
Would all tutoring lead to the same truths or would the emergent truths depend on different wisdom traditions? For example, I found the following in a discussion of Zen Buddhism on the Stanford Philosophy web site:
Zen aims at a perfection of personhood…Zen insists that there should not be a confounding of the moon with a finger. In Zen language, the moon metaphorically designates an experience of enlightenment and the finger a linguistic or reflective endeavor.
That seems to be a fundamental difference between Western rational, language-based discourse and Eastern meditative traditions. Perhaps I’m mistakenly conflating the process of arriving at a perception of truth, with the truths so arrived at.
Oh well, perhaps better left to another thread.
The Zen practitioner attempts to embody non-discriminatory wisdom vis-à-vis the meditational experience known as “satori” (enlightenment).
on March 15th, 2010 at 6:13 am
Antonio,
Your quote regarding “the moon and a finger” reminded me (though perhaps wrongly) of a statement by Thomas Aquinas:
“Actus autem credentis non terminatur ad enuntiabile (dogma), sed ad rem (mystery)” — the act of believing does not stop at what is articulated, but at the reality. It is cited, with the clarifying parentheses by Henri de Lubac in his wonderful book, “The Christian Faith,” p. 304, note 43. His reference is Summa theologiae, IIa, IIae, q. 1, art. 2, ad 2.
However, different fingers may well indicate different moons.
on March 15th, 2010 at 1:27 pm
Fr. Imbelli:
An Amazon query for the book you mention also turned up De Lubac’s “Paradoxes of Faith”. Being a lover of paradox, I couldn’t resist Amazon’s offer to look inside, where I found the following quote:
“Quandium vivimus necesse habemus semper quarere”, which De Lubac translates as, “As long as we live, we deem it ever essential to seek.”
Talk about sortilege.
on March 15th, 2010 at 3:38 pm
The problem is deeper than ‘tutoring’ from different wisdom traditions. The current difficulties with natural law theory lies in contradictions within just the Western traditions.
For example, Ann proposed that “what is good is what makes human beings flourish”. Flourishing under a Platonic system, where individuals are more or less images of an Ideal Form, means approaching that Ideal Form. In an Evolutionary model, flourishing is more aptly seen as adapting to changing conditions. That means diversifying rather than heading toward the single unifying form, and sets up an opposition between the two systems.
A consistent natural law will probably end up recognizing two kinds of values parallel the two systems. Individuals will always be individuals, so individual rights will probably be constant. Social relations change as population changes, so social norms will probably have to change, eg females will no longer be seen as falling short of a male Ideal, but as diverse components of a complex system.
on March 15th, 2010 at 7:16 pm
“An issue that I ponder, however, is how “tradition dependent” is our perception of “the natural law?” Though in the abstract we might say that it is accessible to the “light of reason.” In the concrete, must reason be tutored in order to perceive rightly?
Frl Imbelli –
Indeed, we are dependent on our elders. If every individual had to learn wisdom from scratch we’d be in a bad way, possibly not even still an existing species. I’ve forgotten which psychologist holds this, but there is a view that one of the things that defines human behavior as distinct from others is that our behavior is largely learned from parents, not simply impelled by instinct. I think there’s a lot to that. (But there is also evidence that some other animals do teach their offspring too, so maybe it’s not a specifying characteristic.)
The problem is, of course, that sometimes our parents are wrong.
on March 15th, 2010 at 7:24 pm
Fr, Imbelli and Antonio –
It seems to me that the idea of “the light of reason” is derived from the Augustinian theory of intellectual “illumination”. It has never made too much sense to me.
As to different circumstances leading to different laws, I don’t think that’s fatal to the theory. It just implies that different circumstances require different laws. What that is fatal to is the notion that some of the very general laws have no exceptions. For instance, it is constantly said in Thomas’ theory that the end doesn’t justify the means. Well, that just isn’t true. Consider thissimply illustration. Losing a leg is a physical evil. To chop off your hated sibling’s leg would ordinarily be a serious sin. But if you are a surgeon and your hated sibling had a gangrenous leg it would be morally right, to preserve his life, to chop it off. To me that is just one more example of the lack of critical thinking about their own principles that can be found in too many Aristotelian moralists.
on March 15th, 2010 at 7:47 pm
“For example, Ann proposed that “what is good is what makes human beings flourish”. Flourishing under a Platonic system, where individuals are more or less images of an Ideal Form, means approaching that Ideal Form. In an Evolutionary model, flourishing is more aptly seen as adapting to changing conditions. ‘
Jim McK. –
I don’t see how you can found a natural law theoru on essentially Platonic foundations either. Consider “the” Ideal Form “Man”. Well, in the first place there isn’t any, but that’s a metaphysical issue I think we can ignore for the moment. But consider what Plato says about happiness — it is to be found in the intuition of “the Good, the True and Beautiful”. No doubt this is true, and according to his own theory the lesser, specific goods/truths/beauties are contained in that Absolute. But he really doesn’t tell us how that intuition is attained. It is an essentially mystical experience so far as I can see, and it is not available to all people. This would seem to imply that there is no ultimate happiness for non-mystics.
When Aristotle talks about contemplating “Pure Act” he too seems to have had some sort of mystical illumination in mind. But he admits somewhere that he himself has had such an intuition for “only a short time’. But lets say we could discover how to experience it in a constant state. That would still tell us nothing at all, as far as I can see, about our specific obligations and rights relative to mere people. The theory is just useless as a guide to action.
As to evolution and ethics, if two humans ever produce offspring that are truly a different species with capacities of greater and different kinds than our own, then we would no longer be dealing with the same human nature. Would the ethics of a higher nature differ radically from ours? Hmmm. Interesting question.
on March 16th, 2010 at 8:32 pm
Ann, I was not proposing either Platonism or evolution as reliable grounds for natural law theory. I was trying to suggest that “tutoring” in the Western tradition means including disparate, even opposed, ideas. Platonism has a single Ideal Man, and variety is a result of how we fall short of it. Evolution sees variety as normal, and part of the mechanism of being.
Both of these are open to problems. Viewing women as ‘misbegotten males’ is an example of monolithic systems like Platonism. And the situation you describe for evolution actually happened to some extent in Nazi Germany, with roots in Nietsche et al. Such misuse does not invalidate either system, but points up the the difficulty of identifying ‘human nature’.