John Henry Newman (1801-1890) A Saint for Our TimeJubilee 2025 begins: A Church with open doors and a hopeful outlookSt. Thomas Aquinas, a synthetic understanding of realitySpeech at the academic conference on Theology, humanism, UniversityThe event was held at the Faculty of Theology of the University of Navarra on January 17, 2025, on the occasion of his upcoming retirement.
Memories and commemorations
We start the Jubilee Year 2025. And we can put together some ideas, going through other years 25.
In 225 (1800 years ago), Origen wrote the Peri archéThe first systematic attempt at theology. He had purchased a Hebrew manuscript, found in a jar, with which he was to begin the Hexapla. Thus began the work of theology in dialogue with human thought and with the Holy Scriptures.
In 325 (1700 years ago), the Church celebrated the Council of Niceawhich gave rise to a great Creed and defined the place of the Son of God with the term "Son of God". homoousios. It was possible thanks to the protection of Emperor Constantine. The first phase of Christianity began.
In 425 (1600 years ago), St. Augustine was writing the last books of The City of God on human history where divine history takes place. In barely a hundred years, it was observed that the Christian message was not enough to revitalize the old empire. The West, moderately Christianized, would fall with the barbarian invasions and another world (the Christian nations) would be born after a long period of gestation. The East, on the other hand, would last a thousand years more, until it was subdued by Islam (1453).
In 1225 (800 years ago), St. Thomas Aquinas was born. We owe him the basic structure of Catholic theology, which comes from the Summa. And many other insights. Although the story is not usually well told. What triumphed around 1220 were the Sentences of Peter Lombard, which defined theology for more than three centuries. The Sum later triumphed. In 1526, the Dominican Francisco de Vitoria won a professorship and substituted the Sentences of the Lombardy by the Summa Theologica as a basic book for the study of theology. In addition, he promoted the Law of Nations.
In 1525 (500 years ago), Juan Luis Vives, fed up with university scholasticism (by writing De disciplinis) and far from Spain (where his father was burned for Judaizing in 1524), he was in England with Thomas More, studying precisely The City of God. That year, Luther married Catherine of Bora. And King Henry VIII, who had merited the pontifical title of Fidei defender for opposing him (1521), he planned to divorce Catherine of Aragon, which would end up splitting the Anglican Church (1534).
In 1825 (200 years ago), John Henry Newman was ordained as an Anglican priest, started as a guide for university students, and began to study the Fathers and the Arian controversy, about which he would write an excellent book. He also began to study the legitimacy of the Anglican Church as a third way between Protestants and Catholics. This would lead him to the Catholic Church. In addition, he lived through the liberal secularization in England, the beginning of the end of the Christian nations forged in the Middle Ages, as the modern democratic and pluralistic state developed.
The events of 1925
There are a lot of interesting things that happened 100 years ago.
In 1925, Maritain, a convert to the faith, to Thomism (and to political traditionalism), published Three Reformers. Luther, Descartes, Rousseau.but in 1926, with the condemnation of the L'Action (an unhealed wound), he went from nostalgia for (and vindication of) the Ancien Régime to the defense of the rule of law. He developed a philosophy of the person and of the state inspired by Thomism. And he considered how to live in a Christian way in a democratic and pluralistic society, especially in Integral humanism (1937). He will greatly influence Dignitatis humanae of the Second Vatican Council.
In 1925, Guardini had already set in motion his great dedications. He was helping the young people of Rothenfels, he had published The spirit of the Liturgy (1918) and the Self-training lettersand prepared Letters on Lake Como (1926), reflecting on the change of epoch and its Christian demands; he would rethink it in The decline of the Modern Age (1950). In addition, he had been a professor for two years. Weltanschauung (1923) rereading Kierkegaard, Dostoyevski, Pascal, Saint Augustine...
In 1925 Von Hildebrand (aged 36), organized circles on love. Inspired by faith, he dealt with spiritual affectivity (the heart) and its response to values. In addition, in those years he courageously defended other professors in the face of growing Nazi pressure at the German university.
In 1925, her colleague and friend, Edith Stein was working to form religious vocations in Speyer and was concerned about Heidegger's atheistic drift. They had been, almost at the same time, Husserl's assistants, and while Heidegger lost faith, Edith Stein found it. Thus, they originated two divergent metaphysics. Heidegger summarized it in Being and time, 1927. Edith Stein in Finite and eternal beingpublished posthumously, after his death in a concentration camp (1942). In its last part, he points out what is missing in Heidegger's metaphysics. Tragically parallel lives. It will be worth remembering in 2027.
In 1925, the Saint Serge Institute of Orthodox Theology was founded in Paris by a group of Russian thinkers and theologians, expelled in 1922. They left with the clothes on their backs. It was the turn of others to premiere the Gulaj Archipelago (1923). Saint Serge made patristic and Byzantine theology present live in Paris, and this is how De Lubac, Congar and other Catholic theologians came to know it. He gave identity to modern Orthodox theology and marked its red lines before Catholicism and Protestantism.
In 1925, De Lubac, in a Jesuit novitiate in England, read Rousselot (The eyes of faith1910) and Blondel, and was introduced to the Fathers. And Congar began his theological studies at Le Saulchoir (then in Belgium), with Chenu, who had proposed a new curriculum. These ferments would shape the theology of the twentieth century.
In 1925, Chesterton published The everlasting manThis is a brilliant and highly topical work, which struck a chord with C. S. Lewis and led to his conversion. In two parts, it vindicates the Christian deployment in history and the unique religious value of Jesus Christ in the face of modern "Arian" ("Unitarian") or pan-religious tendencies.
In 1925, St. Josemaría was ordained and began his priestly work, which, with God's inspirations, led him to found Opus Dei. His mission was not academic, but he shed much light on how to be a good Christian in the world. In addition, he had a marked humanistic disposition with his appreciation for the fruits of human labor, language, culture and study, education and virtues, civic and social responsibility.
What can we take away from all this?
First of all, we should be amazed and grateful for such a vast and beautiful patrimony, the fruit of so many Christians in dialogue with their times and with the Scriptures (with revelation). There is nothing so rich and coherent in the intellectual universe. Suffice it to recall the dominant communist ideology of the last century (and to read The drama of atheistic humanism de De Lubac). Today transmuted into culture wokewhich promises to be as ubiquitous, arbitrary (and suffocating) as communism was. Epidemics or intellectual covid.
The Gospel, in dialogue with every epoch and incorporating the legitimate fruits of the spirit, produces around it a Christian humanism. It helps us to understand ourselves. And it is a field of encounter (and evangelization) with all people of good will.
Thus we have an idea of God, which connects with the mystery of the world and with our deepest aspirations (we can no longer believe in other gods). And a rich and exact idea of the human being, of his spirit and development. And of his mysterious wound (brilliantly expressed in the 7 deadly sins). And of his end, happiness and salvation in Christ (way, truth and life, cfr. John 14,6). And it should be emphasized that the Rule of Law, with Human Rights, which is the legal framework of our societies (and our defense against the new tyrannies) is also the fruit of this Christian humanism, and today it is in danger amidst materialistic simplifications and ideological whims.
A new context
In its Introduction to Christianity (1967), Joseph Ratzinger warned that the Church is moving from ancient Christian societies to fervent minorities (a process that may take centuries). The Western Roman Empire collapsed in the 5th and 6th centuries. And since the end of the 18th century, a secularization drive (partly legitimate) dismantles the Christian nations forged in the Middle Ages. And it turns us into a minority, which must carry out as a leaven the mission that the Lord has asked for: "Go and evangelize all nations". (Marcos 16, 15).
Many things have changed since our Faculty of Theology was founded in 1964. At that time almost 700 priests were ordained in Spain each year, and now there are just over 70. And a few months ago, a process of unification of the Spanish seminaries was initiated. A revision of the ecclesiastical studies will probably follow, because it is felt that they do not correspond to what the times demand: they do not sufficiently encourage the faith of the candidates and do not prepare them for the mission.
The German synodal journey has revealed the inadequacy of a strictly academic theology (with many means), perhaps too aseptic if not problematic, which has failed to nourish the faith of the ecclesiastical structures it has formed.
Unresolved issues in theology
The subject of theology, by definition, is God. But God revealed in history and fully revealed in the Son. Today, a new Arianism wants to turn Jesus Christ into a good person. Chesterton warned in The eternal man and C. S. Lewis, when he posed his famous "trilemma" (see on Wikipedia).
Jesus Christ, the Son, has revealed to us the truth and beauty of God's love, manifested in his complete self-giving. This personal love (person to person) constitutes the Trinitarian union, through the Holy Spirit, and extends to the communion of saints. If Jesus Christ is not homoousiosA solitary God remains locked in his distant and veiled mystery. "No one has ever seen God; the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father has revealed Him to us." (John 1, 18).
And we are left without the way of salvation, which is Jesus Christ. We need to renew and make the message of salvation meaningful for our contemporaries. The Gospel of Christ's love saves us from the meaninglessness of the world and of history, from our moral failures and those of humanity, from death and sin, which is the deepest and most mysterious thing. And what our contemporaries feel the least.
For this reason, we also need a believing reading of the Bible that makes clear the History of Revelation, of the Covenant and of Salvation, which culminates in Christ (cf. Letter to the Hebrews 1,1). And do not limit yourself to punctual exegesis, which disperses the attention. The detailed philological study is only a previous task (which does not need faith, nor does it kindle it).
Clarifying the causes of the post-conciliar crisis
The current internal debate in the Church calls for a fair and profound diagnosis of what has happened in order to understand the deep reasons for the crisis and to react accordingly.
It is necessary to review the confrontation of scholastic Thomism of the 1940s with the nouvelle theologie. It arose amidst many misunderstandings and was quite foreign to the true thought and disposition of St. Thomas. But it is in danger of being prolonged.
In addition, there are two philosophical areas where the legacy of St. Thomas requires developments (which he would make). The relationship with the sciences, which is expressed in the Philosophy of Nature and in Metaphysics. Gilson claimed it in the last pages of The philosopher and theology.
Also the relationship with political thought. In short, discernment on modernity: the legitimacy and value of the rule of law, with human rights and religious freedom. This thread comes from Francisco de Vitoria. It is taken up by Maritain and many others. The Second Vatican Council assumes it and originates, by reaction, the schism of Lefebvre.
The theology of the 19th (with Newman, Scheeben, Möhler and others) and 20th centuries (with so many interesting authors) is, without a doubt, a third golden age, together with patristics and scholasticism. And it is necessary to synthesize and incorporate it. The difficulty lies precisely in its richness and variety, and in the limits of what can be taught.
We also need a revision of Liberation Theology, which discerns the past and projects itself into the future. Because it runs the risk that the preferential option for the poor, the most noble and Christian thing it has, becomes an illusory revolutionary nostalgia or an inoperative rhetoric. Political and moral (and theological) efforts are needed to build just societies with Christian inspiration.
We have an immense heritage to inspire us and to engage in the evangelizing dialogue that we are engaged in today.
