Fred Lawrence on Ravasi

04.11.2021

Dear Fred,

I am attaching something by Ravasi where he mentions Lonergan as one of his great teachers...

how are you and Sue? well, I hope.

I was in Jerusalem recently, and remembered you and Sue with Vernet!

wishes and prayers,

Ivo

06.11.2021

Dear Ivo,

It is so good to hear from you! It's been a while. We hope you've missed catching COVID 19. So far we've had good luck, with the help of Pfizer!

Thanks for sending the Ravasi piece. He certainly does sound like he operates in the vein of Lonergan. I very much appreciate his understanding of the Jesus of the Gospels, critically and as good news! His closing salvo--especially the Szymborska quote--certainly rings true for Sue and me.

After undergoing the crisis of chronic heart failure and chronic obstruction of the pulmonary system, I am back teaching for my 50th year, relieved to be doing so live instead of on ZOOM. What a difference that makes! Sue is pretty much the same, with the undiagnosable tinnitus in her ears running on down through her torso, together will loss of much memory of the past, so that when she hears of something familiar it rings a bell, and she sort of remembers when I remind her. The loss of the ability to concentrate for long, has made reading longer articles or books pretty much out of the question, but day-to-day, it's pretty normal. So keep us in your prayers, please.

Your mention of Fr Vernet brings back happy memories of being with you in Jerusalem. I cannot help recalling with a chuckle his answer to the question whether he's learned Arabic: "Shweh, Sweh." And I often think of the last line of his prayer to St Joseph: "Help us to be silent."

When I talk to my old Roman classmates, and people I was in the seminary with in California, there is a lot of consternation about how so many of the younger priests and seminarians pretty much reject Vatican II, and have returned to the old "circle the wagons" approach to the world, and have returned to the notion of the Holy Eucharist as a transaction between Jesus and the individual, with no sense Thomas Aquinas's teaching that the "res of this sacrament is the unitas mystici corporis, along with Jesus crucified, risen, exalted as the Head of the entire human race. Have you encountered this problem yet? Jeremy Blackwood, who teaches in the Milwaukee seminary, has said that both old and young seminarians, are  mainly comfortable with Neoscholastic philosophy/theology and the Roman Catechism. I remember Abp. Diarmuid McCollough saying after the vote in Ireland to embrace same-sex marriage, that "the Irish are the most catechized and least evangelized people in the world!" Many who have to do with religious education in the States, however, say to the ones they are training, "Don't teach catechism, teach Jesus!"

Love,

Fred & Sue 

Ivo Coelho <ivo.coelho@gmail.com>	09:06 (7 minutes ago)
to Frederick

dear Fred, 

good to hear from you. it seems you have been through a rough period, healthwise. a prayer for you and Sue.

yes, the problem that you mention regarding seminarians and young religious is very much present - more in Europe and N. America, probably, and in some parts of S. America. though I must not forget that also in the East... there is a very strong anti-pope francis trend..

i love the quote from Aquinas! thanks!

we have our noses to the grind, with the task of revising our Ratio fundamentalis ... but one day at a time.

once again, wishes to Sue and prayers for you both and your family.

and yes, I am well, thank God. we've been to Guatemala, Colombia, Kenya and Israel recently, and, apart from the increased complication and complexity of travel, I am well.

I pass by St Pauls inside the Walls now and then and think of Sue and you... they never did get back to me about the memorial service.

Ivo (09.11.2021)

On Thomas Aquinas

Dear Father Ivo Coelho,

I want to ‘read-up’ on St. Thomas Aquinas.

Can  suggest some websites or links to articles on his life and work.

It just occurred to me today that I must read his life and works.

Warm regards

Mark

08.07.2018:
that's a difficult request!

because I am not an expert on Thomas, though I love him.

I began with a distaste for him, communicated to us by our first history of philosophy teacher. 

I thought Lonergan was throwing out Thomas, with his freshness.

while doing the doctorate on Lonergan, I discovered just how much he had taken from Thomas: he spent 11 years of his life studying Thomas, first for his own doctoral dissertation on the most interesting topic of "grace and freedom", or the interaction between God's freedom and our own... and then - because he had to teach Christology, the theology of Christ - he studied one point in the classical Thomist Christology, which is obviously linked also to Trinitarian theology: how the Son can be completely equal to the Father, and yet "come from" the Father. Thomas studied a suggestion made first by Augustine, I think, and proposed an understanding of it. In brief: when we understand something perfectly, we are also able to express ourselves perfectly. From perfect understanding emerges the expression of that understanding (Thomas called it the VERBUM, the Word - not to be identified simply with the spoken word which is the sign, either a sound or a written sign) - and that expression is completely equal to the understanding from which it emerges. You can see how this could be taken as somehow shedding light on the relationship between Father and Son...

What was Thomas "doing" in his brief life - 49 years?

Again, this is what I learnt from Lonergan.

Thomas is one of the great theologians of the church. before him was the period of the "Fathers" of the Church - the "patristic" period. 

Peter Lombard had begun collecting books called SENTENCES - which means, in our language "opinions" - on different theological topics.

Abelard organized them into "Sic et Non" - on the same topic, he found some saying one thing, and others something else. 

The medievals had invented a "method" called the QUAESTIO. A quaestio existed if on any topic there was a difference of opinion. 

The method was: to state the Quaestio or else the THESIS; 

then the pros and cons: Videtur ... it seems that; Sed contra... on the contrary... 

then to find some principle or principles of a solution, 

and then to state the solution. 

and then to answer one by one the objections.

this is more or less the structure you will find in any Question of the Summa Theologiae.

People were already doing this in Thomas' time.

what was Thomas' genius?

he realized that solutions to individual questions were fine, but what if the principles of the solutions were themselves in conflict?

he realized that he had to bring unity into the solutions themselves.

how did he do that? how does one do that? either by creating a systematic thought (philosophy) oneself, or else by adopting a good system from someone else and adapt it.

And here again Thomas' boldness: he decided to adopt and adapt ARISTOTLE, where by and large the theologians of his time were Platonic - Augustinian. 

Thomas was utterly brilliant in his adaptation of Aristotle. How did he adapt Aristotle? obviously he was guided in this by his faith and his knowledge of the Christian tradition. (he was actually condemned a few years after his death for adopting Aristotle). 

this work of adaptation was carried out in his COMMENTARIES on books of Aristotle. So it involved assiduous study and writing. (He did not know Greek; so he asked friends to translate Aristotle into Latin.) (PS: the texts of Aristotle had been preserved thanks also to the Muslims - especially in Spain, I guess. These cultured Muslims were at the time the teachers of Europe.) 

There were other theologians who were also turning to Aristotle, but with different results. Thomas was different, I guess, because he also simultaneously studied the bible and wrote commentaries on the books of the Bible. 

So this double study was the source of his modified Aristotelian system. Adn this system becomes the unifying factor in his work of unifying theology. the greatest result of this is the Summa Theologiae. 

NB: Thomas was not content in quoting scripture, or stating Christian beliefs. He was trying to do theology, which means that he was trying to provide some understanding of Christian beliefs, of the Christian faith. E.g. He with all the others, since the great councils (Nicea, etc.) believed that God is three and yet one. He as a theologian tried to make sense of that: how is that possible? Again, he with all the others believed that Jesus is true God and true man, as the Council of Chalcedon had said. He as theologian tried to make sense of that. and so on. theology for him was FIDES QUAERENS INTELLECTUM - faith seeking understanding. 

what could I suggest you read?

the classic way is to first read a general article - something from the Encylopedia (perhaps even the Wiki).

then read a simple life - perhaps the one by G.K. Chesterton.

then a more substantial life which will be "life and thought" - will try to find out some from a friend.

happy study! 

Ivo

From Eugenio Riva, 08.07.2018:

Carissimo don Ivo,

sono stato contento della giornata vissuta insieme a Fossanova e Amaseno.

Il libro con la biografia di San Tommaso è il seguente:

GUGLIELMO DA TOCCO, Storia di San Tommaso d'Aquino, a cura di Davide Riserbato, Jaka Book, Milano 2015

La pubblicazione è della Collana di cultura medioevale ed è disponibile sul mercato.

Guglielmo da Tocco è il promotore della causa di canonizzazione di San Tommaso e ha vissuto con lui dal 1272-1274.

Ho avuto l’occasione di leggerlo quando è uscito a settembre 2015 e mi è piaciuto molto...

Tanti saluti.

JAMES A. WEISHEIPL, Friar Thomas d'Aquino: his life thought and works, 1974

 

Altri due libri di un altro domenicano (tradotti anche in italiano in volume unico) potrebbero essere:

 

JEAN PIERRE TORRELL, Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol 1. The person and his work, 2005 (32,65 dollari)

JEAN PIERRE TORRELL, Sain Thomas Aquinas, vol 2. Spiritual master, 2003 (28,83 dollari)

Lonergan and Thomas Aquinas

I was surprised this evening at tea when one of our priest confreres, Lawrence D'Souza, revealed that he had been reading Lonergan on the web "in order to fight with you." He was surprised to learn that Lonergan had learnt from Thomas Aquinas, and that, in fact, he was one of the major interpreters of Thomas in the last century. He was, naturally, also surprised to learn that Lonergan had also written on economics. But the greatest surprise was on my part: that one of my confreres has been reading Lonergan. Cheers!

Aquinas on Plato

Aquinas rejecting the principle that like is known by like (see De Smet):

Now it seems that Plato strayed from the truth because, having observed that all knowledge takes places through some kind of similitude, he thought that the form of the thing known must of necessity be in the knower in the same manner as in the thing known itself. But it was his opinion that the form of the thing understood is in the intellect under conditions of universality, immateriality, and immobility; which is apparent from the very operation of the intellect, whose act of understanding is universal, and characterized by a certain necessity; for the mode of action corresponds to the mode of the agent's form. Therefore he concluded that the things which we understand must subsist in themselves under the same conditions of immateriality and immobility.

 But there is no necessity for this. ... the sensible form is in one way in the thing whcih is external to the soul, and in another way in the senses, which receive the forms of sensible things without receiving matter.... So, too, the intellect, according to its own mode, receives under conditions of immateriality and immobility the species of material and movable bodies; for the received is in the receiver according to the mode of the receiver. We must conclude, therefore, that the soul knows bodies through the intellect by a knowledge which is immaterial, universal and necessary. (STh I.84.1 c. Basic Writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Vol. I. Ed. Anton C. Pegis. New York: Random House, 1945.)

See also STh I.84.2 c for more on why the principle that like is known by like is to be rejected. Here Aquinas concludes that the soul does not understand corporeal things by its essence; only God does.

God's knowledge of everything

Aquinas on how God knows everything by knowing himself:

Hence many ideas exist in the divine mind, as things understood by it; as can be proved thus. Inasmuch as He knows His own essence perfectly, He knows it according to every mode in which it can be known. (STh I.15.2 c. The "Summa Theologica" of St. Thomas Aquinas. Part I. QQ. I-XXVI. Literally translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province. 2nd rev. ed. London: Burns Oates & Washbourne, 1920)

Aquinas on knowledge of sensible things

Augustine held that there is no communication from body to soul, but only from soul to body. Thomas Aquinas instead, in the De Veritate, has the following questions:
Does the mind know material things? (q. 10, a. 4)
Can our mind know material things in their singularity? (q. 10, a. 5)
Does the human mind receive knowledge from sensible things? (q. 10, a. 6)

Lonergan on Thomas Aquinas

Lonergan has the most interesting things to say about Thomas Aquinas, and some of this in his unpublished stuff. Might be interesting to draw it all together.

Sankara and Thomas

Is Sankara perhaps as systematic or unsystematic as Thomas? Both wrote a large number of commentaries. Sankara seems to have written only one 'systematic' work that is today acknowledged as authentic, the Upadesasahasri, while Thomas wrote De ente et essentia. But then Thomas wrote two Summas, and that is his great claim to system. Remember Lonergan and his remarks on the method of the quaestio: one needs something that will bring together the great diversity of principles adopted in answering questions; one needs a common Begrifflichkeit; and Thomas found this by adopting and adapting Aristotle. Aristotle adopted and adapted provided him with the required unifying factor. Sankara perhaps did not get round to this; did not want to get round to this; his aim being purely valuational.

Thomas and Scotus in Lonergan

A possible Lonergan paper: "Thomas and Scotus in Lonergan." Lonergan has the most interesting things to say, mostly in his unpublished stuff, about the two great protagonists of the Middle Ages. One of the things I remember is that Scotus wanted to defend the particularity, the event character, of the Incarnation. Thomas was borrowing from Aristotle, for whom particulars had no place in science properly speaking. He had to make place for the particulars... Lonergan himself sees his method as a fusion of the old wisdom and the old prudence - a new communitarian habit capable of handling not only the universal but also the particular.

Heidegger GA 23

I am enjoying reading Heidegger's GA 23. I have done the part on philosophical method - where he outlines the phenomenological method as the method of philosophy - it seems to me a rerun, in much more accessible language, of the early part of Being and Time. Not that I understand now what the phenomenological method means - though H does try to distinguish between ontic and ontological, ontological being what is concerned not so much with entities, Seiende, but with the Being, Sein, of entities.

I am onto the Thomas Aquinas part now. I have the impression that H respects Aquinas. He begins by listing the available literature; then a list of the works; then a brief exposition of the way an article is presented (the question, the Videtur quod non, the Sed contra, the Response, the answers to objections), and then ...

Vol. 23 of Heidegger's Gesamtausgabe

Volume 23 of the Heidegger Gesamtausgabe (GA) arrived by itself; probably it did not fit into the 5 kilo parcels. It belongs to the II. Abteilung of the GA, the Vorlesungen or lectures of 1919-1944, and bears the title "Geschichte der Philosophie von Thomas von Aquin bis Kant" - History of Philosophy from Thomas Aquinas to Kant. Given at Marburg, Winter Semester of 1926-27. Edited by Helmuth Vetter. [The H GA are far less impressive than the Lonergan CWL, for reasons outlined by Theodore Kisiel: the over-possessiveness of the Heidegger heirs, from what I remember. The scholarly apparatus is meagre for a German production, for example. Pity. Still, the GA run into some 90 volumes. Quite an achievement. But of course the financial potential here is enormous, given H's vast popularity in comparison with L's.]

Somehow I began reading, perhaps because of the curious fact of finding Heidegger actually speaking of Thomas Aquinas. The volume consists of a transcription of Heidegger's handwritten notes for lectures - which, from what I gather, were a job he had to do, taking time out from the printing of Being and Time. Still, they are Heidegger's notes, not just anybody's notes for lectures.

Since they are handwritten notes for lectures, they are in the form of jottings, rather than complete sentences. But: far easier to read (so far) than Being and Time, for example.

The chief contention seems to be: don't take Modern (Western) Philosophy as a completely new beginning. Its roots go back to Ancient Philosophy, but passing especially through the Middle Ages.

In the Middle Ages, interestingly, Heidegger chooses to concentrate on Thomas Aquinas. He gives the reason for this: Thomas Aquinas was a careful interpreter of Aristotle. (I was surprised to see the respect H has for Aquinas.)

Still, the main criticism is there: the forgetfulness of Being. Thomas - like everyone else - concentrated on beings - the world, the human being (psyche - Mensch), God.

The blurb on the inner covers says that these lectures were given during the last phase of the writing of Being and Time.

So H does not begin from Descartes, but goes back to Thomas Aquinas, and through Thomas, I guess, to Aristotle. He speaks of the Modern period as the Protestantism of the spirit / reason, and of the period before that as the Catholicism of the spirit / reason. He also speaks of the whole process as culminating in Hegel. (I must remember that it is Heidegger who is writing; so the great process of the overcoming of Hegel, which took place in large part also due to Heidegger, has not yet happened.) Hegel, H says, is the culmination and perfection of the development of Western philosophy. (I need to study Hegel!)

At any rate, I am thrilled to be actually reading this stuff. I have been extremely bored these days, and this has brought some life. Who knows where it will lead. I have the idea that H is struggling with a new language for Christian theology, or for religion, as well as a new language for 'philosophy.' That is, in part, also the endeavour of Lonergan. So. Let's see where this goes. A bit of cross-fertilization will not do harm. Otherwise I spend time merely on novels. Historical ones, cultural ones, of course. And perhaps not ultimately useless. But.

And: one has to read. Slowly. One has to think. And that calls for a contemplative, chewy type of reading. Mastication. Letting the juices mix.

Being and Essence

I am busy this month composing a note on Being and Essence for the new IGNOU course on Philosophy, at the behest of George Panthanmackel, MSFS. I think the CBCI / CRI have managed to persuade IGNOU to offer a philosophy course that would be largely designed by Catholic philosophers, and would be meant to serve Catholic philosophy students - while being open, naturally, to all. This would be a way for our seminarians to have their philosophical studies validated as a civilly recognized degree.

Panthanmackel has been released to supervise the work for 6 months. I believe he is based in Delhi, from where he coordinates especially the writing of notes for the course.

Being and Essence has never been a topic I have been interested in. With a largely Thomist / Lonergan background, one tends to be more interested in esse and existence, rather than essence. I took up the challenge, however, with the intention of seeing how the discourse about being and essence could be led to the recognition of the capital role of esse and existence.

The study has proved to be interesting, however. I discovered that I - and perhaps others - tend to read Plato and especially Aristotle through the lens of Thomas, assuming that Thomas' distinctions are to be found in Aristotle. I am discovering that ousia / being, essence and substance are not at all as clear as they seem to be. It seems that with every book Aristotle has a slightly different meaning of ousia, and substance. And in the middle of it all is his to ti en einai, which Thomas rendered quite literally as quod quid erat esse, and which Lonergan explains as the form or the formal cause, not the essence. What Thomas calls essence is Aristotle's to ti estin, says Lonergan.

But I have to check all this.

I must confess that, thanks really to Panthanmackel, I opened Aristotle's original works for the first time in my life. I am really ashamed about that, but there is always a first time... So.