Doing theology and learning theology

I've been trying to reformulate the following from 24 FSDB 04.11.2023 EN, Appendix 7: The program of studies: specific formation of the salesian priest:

A simple theoretical exposition of the tenets of Christian faith will not suffice. There must be a balance between two approaches in theological formation: knowledge leading to a relational experience of God in Christ and the need for propositional knowledge of Christ. In other words, theological education has to integrate faith as kerygma, koinonia, diakonia, martyria and leitourgia, keeping in mind that “the whole tradition of the Church cannot be reduced to the mechanical transmission of inert objects, since it is carried by a living subject and knows a development.”  

A serious hermeneutics of the tradition of the Church and “the current trends of contemporary culture” (VG 72.3) is called for. Among the issues of relevance are certainly the existential peripheries, poverty and migration, the digitalized world, new views about marriage, family and gender, the ecological crisis, the plurality of religions and the range of religious attitudes from extreme fundamentalism to the increasing number of those without religious affiliation or else are simply indifferent to all forms of religion.

The original problem arose from the attempt to translate "the need for propositional knowledge of Christ" into Italian. One does not easily say "conoscenza proposizionale" in Italian, says Silvio Roggia. Cloe Taddei-Ferretti suggested "conoscenza di Cristo attraverso proposizioni". 

Perhaps I just need to reformulate the two paragraphs.

I have been dipping into Lonergan, first to find how "propositional truth" has been translated into Italian, and then asking myself: how would Lonergan talk about the teaching / learning of theology? 

I've dipped into "Christ as Subject: A Reply" (CWL 4:153-184); "The Dehellenization of Dogma" (13:11-30); "Questionnaire on Philosophy: Response" 17:352-383); "The Response of the Jesuit as Priest and Apostle in the Modern World" (13:140ff). Also a bit into Method in Theology (CWL 14).

Reading "The Response of the Jesuit as Priest and Apostle in the Modern World" (CWL 13:140ff), I am struck by the structure of the text: (1) Authenticity, (2) The Spirit, (3) The Word, (4) Sending.

I had never noticed the two missions there, in sections 2 and 3: the Spirit and the Word.

And then the Church, in section 3. "The gift of the Spirit can be everywhere at once, but the challenge of the Word radiates to the ends of the earth only through human mediation." (CWL 13:148)

See "Questionnaire on Philosophy: Response" (CWL 17:358): In the Christian religion as lived but not yet thematized there may be distinguished three moments: (1) the ontic present of God's love flooding our hearts through the Holy Spirit he has given us; (2) the objective past in which God's revelation of his love to us through Christ Jesus has been mediated down the ages by the ongoing Christian community; (3) the eschatological consummation and, on the way, the command and the duty to preach the gospel to every class in every culture. 

Doing theology = mediating between a cultural matrix and the significance and role of a religion in that matrix. (CWL 14:3)

Teaching or learning theology: what is it? I guess it is moving from the Christian religion as lived, and as lived with a largely symbolic thematization (scripture, catechism, doctrine) to a properly theological thematization. "A Christian theology thematizes the Christian religion on the level of the times in which the theology is composed." (17:358)

That thematization, for an ordinary student of theology in the first cycle, would involve thematizing his own lived experience (the gift of God's love, the presence of the Holy Spirit in his life), in interaction with the objective past and present mediation by the Christian community of the revelation of God's love in Jesus. 

There is no "individual experience" hermetically sealed from the experience of others in its synchronic and diachronic dimensions, so lived experience includes one's own experience in interaction with that of others. Theology will help one to access one's own experience and enlarge "that of others" to include "the tradition" as well as "the current trends of contemporary culture." (see the Ratio text above)

Reading: Francis, "Ad theologiam provendam" (2023). (See the blog entry of 10.11.2023)

Formulation:

The study of theology in preparation for the Salesian priesthood cannot be a question of merely studying abstract formulae and schemes of the past with no effort to connect them to one's own experience of faith and to the places and times in which one is living. 

The study of theology involves appropriating the faith as lived in the past and in the present in order to deepen one's own faith, and to serve God's people, especially the young. Formation in mission involves also, therefore, theologizing in mission: the young to whom we are sent and our mission to them must enter into our study and our reflection: "For you I study", just as it enters into our prayer. Theology, apostolic experiences, prayer, all must flow together. 

A serious hermeneutics of Scripture, tradition and “the current trends of contemporary culture” (VG 72.3) is called for. Among the issues of relevance are certainly the existential peripheries, poverty and migration, the digitalized world, new views about marriage, family and gender, the ecological crisis, the plurality of religions and the range of religious attitudes from extreme fundamentalism to the increasing number of those without religious affiliation or else are simply indifferent to all forms of religion.

From Mark T. Miller, 11.11.2023:

Wow, I can't think of something that has all of those things.  I'm still looking though. Here's two good ones I've found so far in Method, 1973 red edition, p. 278:

It may be objected that nihil amatum nisi praecognitum. But while that is true of other human love, it need not be true of the love with which God floods our hearts through the Holy Spirit he has given us (Rom. 5, 5). That grace could be the finding that grounds our seeking God through natural reason and through positive religion. It could be the touchstone by which we judge whether it is really God that natural reason reaches⁵ or positive religion preaches. It could be the grace that God offers all men, that underpins what is good in the religions of mankind, that explains how those that never heard the gospel can be saved. It could be what enables the simple faithful to pray to their heavenly Father in secret even though their religious apprehen­sions are faulty. Finally, it is in such grace that can be found the theological justification of Catholic dialogue with all Christians, with non-Christians, and even with atheists who may love God in their hearts while not knowing him with their heads.

Here's a longer one from Method 326-27:

There are two ways in which the unity of the faith may be conceived. On classicist assumptions there is just one culture. That one culture is not attained by the simple faithful, the people, the natives, the barbarians. None the less, career is always open to talent. One enters upon such a career by diligent study of the ancient Latin and Greek authors. One pursues such a career by learning Scholastic philosophy and theology. One aims at high office by becoming proficient in canon law. One succeeds by winning the approbation and favor of the right personages. Within this set-up the unity of faith is a matter of everyone subscribing to the correct formulae.

Such classicism, however , was never more than the shabby shell of Catholicism. The real root and ground of unity is being in love with God—the fact that God’s love has flooded our inmost hearts through the Holy Spirit he has given us (Rom. 5, 5). The acceptance of this gift both constitutes religious conversion and leads to moral and even intellectual conversion.

Further, religious conversion, if it is Christian, is not just a state of mind and heart. Essential to it is an intersubjective, interpersonal component. Besides the gift of the Spirit within, there is the outward encounter with Christian witness. That witness testifies that of old in many ways God has spoken to us through the prophets but in this latest age through his Son (Heb. I, 1.2).

Thirdly, the function of church doctrines lies within the func­tion of Christian witness. For the witness is to the mysteries revealed by God and, for Catholics, infallibly declared by the church. The meaning of such declarations lies beyond the vicissitudes of human historical process. But the contexts, within which such meaning is grasped, and so the manner, in which such meaning is expressed, vary both with cultural differences and with the measure in which human consciousness is differentiated.

Fred Lawrence for the Ratio

I thought of reading Fred Lawrence for the Ratio, thinking of his brilliant phrases: the self that is only eschatologically itself; the divine reversal of the habitual recoil of the self into massive possessiveness; the subject that is not completely master of itself (the authenticity of the subject or lack of it cannot ever be brought completely into the foreground - our course is in the night, our control only rough and approximate)... (see my new file, LAWRENCE anthropology notes, for now in the Revision of the Ratio folder...)

Lawrence / Lonergan's anthropology is complex. is that complexity missing in the Ratio? Given that Lawrence's complexity only reflects the complexity of life and a world in which grace is offered, accepted or rejected, in a multitude of subjects, societies, cultures over time and space, perhaps not. But how to introduce it? 

One obvious element: Lawrence insists on the three conversions, and not only on moral and religious conversion. 

 

Analogy

Mauro Mantovani, "L'analogia 'tomista': tra fonti, interpretazioni e nuove richerche." Salesianum 84/3 (2022) 433-460.

The following bibliography is from his note 3.

F.A. Blance, L'analogie," Revue de Philosophie 23 (1923) 248-271.

N. Balthasar, "L'abstraction et l'analogie de l'être," Estudios Franciscanos 34 (1924) 166-216.

R. McInerny, Studies in Analogy (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1968).

S.M. Ramírez, De analogia, 4 vols. Madrid: CSIC, 1970-1972.

P. Secretan, L'analogie. Paris: PUF, 1984.

B. Pinchard, Métaphysique et sémantique (la signification analogiques des termes dan les principes mathématiques). Paris: Vrin, 1987.

E. Przywara. Analogia entis. Paris: PUF, 1990.

A. de Murault. Néoplatonisme et aristotélisme dans la métaphysique médiévale. Analogie, causalité, participation. Paris: Vrin, 1995.

R.M.W. Stamberger. On analogy. An Essay Historical and Systematic. New York: P. Lang, 1995.

V. Melchiorre. La via analogica. Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 1996.

J. Gambra, La analogia en general. Síntesis tomista de Santiago Ramírez. Pamplona: Eunsa, 2002. 20-70.

J.F. Courtine. Inventio analogiae. Métaphysique et ontothéologie. Paris: Vrin, 2005.

A. Pérez de Laborda, ed. Jornada sobre analogía. Madrid: Publicaciones de la Facultad de Teología "San Dámaso", 2006.

T. Tyn. Metafisica della sostanza. Partecipazione e analogia entis. Verona: Fede & Cultura, 2009.

F. Moretti. Il pensiero di Dio. L'analogia nella teologia occidentale. Milano: Mimesis, 2019.

M. Beuchot Puente. "Acerca de una hermenéutica analógica," Per la filosofia. Filosofia e insegnamento 37 (2020) n. 108, 119-127.

Mantovani's own book is in the press:

M. Mantovani. L'analogia tomista nell'interpretazione di alcuni autori della cosidetta 'seconda Scolastica'. to be published.

He has other bibliography in the rest of the article; I guess these are the "new" interpretions he mentions in the title of his article. I noticed abundant references to A. Alessi. J.F. Wippel, L.B. Geiger (1942), C. Fabro (2005), A. Contat (2017), B. Mondin, and Klubertanz (2009) are also mentioned.

See my own article, which contains a slightly different bibliography, deriving probably from Henrici's course at the Greg (cited in the article).

Ivo Coelho,“Analogy.” ACPI Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Ed. Johnson J. Puthenpurackal. Bangalore: Asian Trading Corporation, 2010. 1:64-68.  

Benedict XVI: the doctrine of analogy of St Thomas is the basis for any human discourse about divinity. Audiene of 16 June 2010. (Mantovani 460)

B. Mondin: the Thomist doctrine of analogy is of perennial value. contemporary scholars of religious language (Ramsey, Ferré, Mascall, Bochenski) show that it is the best response to the positivists, existentialists, linguistic analysts, who claim that religious language has no objective signification or meaning. (Mantovani 460)

[Missing ... the author I used in Philosophy of God... what's his name. The chap of the three fortresses.]

Wittgenstein, Private Notebooks 1914-1916

Private Notebooks 1914-1916 by Ludwig Wittgenstein review – sex and logic

Translated into English for the first time, these diaries provide a glimpse into the innermost thoughts of a great philosopher

Anil Gomes, The Guardian, Wednesday, 18 May 2022

https://www.theguardian.com/profile/anil-gomes

Ludwig Wittgenstein joined the army the day after his native Austria-Hungary declared war on Russia in August 1914. He had been serving for almost three months when he received word that his brother Paul, a concert pianist, had lost his right arm in battle. “Again and again,” he wrote in his notebook, “I have to think of poor Paul, who has so suddenly been deprived of his vocation! How terrible! What philosophical outlook would it take to overcome such a thing? Can it even happen except through suicide!”

Wittgenstein was an unusual philosopher. He became obsessed with the foundations of logic while an engineering student and presented himself to Bertrand Russell in Cambridge, ready to solve all its problems. His intent was to provide an account of logic that was free from paradox and his solution came in the form of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, sent to Russell from the Italian prisoner-of-war camp in which Wittgenstein was held at the end of the first world war.

The Tractatus is written as a series of numbered propositions, closer in form to modernist poetry than philosophical treatise. Its central ideas can be traced back to the notebooks Wittgenstein kept during the early years of the conflict. The right-hand side of each spread was used to set out his evolving thoughts on logic and language. The left-hand side was saved for his personal notes, written in a simple code in which the letters of the alphabet were reversed (Z = A, and so on).

It is these private remarks that are published in English here for the first time, edited and translated by Marjorie Perloff. They range from complaints about the other soldiers – “a bunch of swine! No enthusiasm for anything, unbelievable crudity, stupidity & malice!” – to the number of times he masturbates (“Yesterday, for the first time in 3 weeks”). He recounts his depression – “like a stone it presses on my chest. Every duty turns into an unbearable burden” – and his living conditions. These are accompanied by constant updates on how his work is going. And by “work”, he always means philosophy. “Remember how great the blessing of work is!” he writes. This work is the focus; the war, a backdrop.

Wittgenstein’s solution to the problems of logic was largely in place by 1916. And had his contribution to philosophy ended there, the Tractatus might be unknown beyond that particular sub-field. But the book ends with a series of puzzling remarks on ethics, value and the meaning of life – remarks that Wittgenstein thought central to his project but which both confused and frustrated his first readers. It is here that the Notebooks tantalise. For in the material on the left-hand pages Wittgenstein first begins to reflect on the inner self, on God’s presence in the world, on what is required for life to make sense. It can sometimes seem irrelevant to the discussion of logic taking place on the right-hand side. “Have thought a great deal about all sorts of things,” he writes, “but curiously enough cannot establish their connection to my mathematical train of thought.”

He has the obsessive focus of a philosophical genius – one who thinks constantly about his work, even under enemy fire

And then in 1916, facing death on the frontline, the connection is forged. Paradox in logic arises when you try to say those things that can only be shown. But that applies equally to God, the self and meaning. As he writes on a left-hand page, “What cannot be said, cannot be said”. The purview of ethics, like the purview of logic, lies outside the realm of what can be stated in language. And thus we get to the seventh and final statement of the Tractatus: whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

For those who know the Tractatus, there is some interest in seeing how concerns that start life among the personal remarks slowly drift over to the facing page. For those who do not care about these details, there is interest in seeing first-hand the obsessive focus of a philosophical genius – one who thinks constantly about his work, even under enemy fire. When he writes of “laying siege”, it is to philosophical problems; when he wants to “spill [his] blood before this fortress”, it is in the context of logic.

Even the masturbation is hard to separate from the philosophy: it happens when work is going well. For Wittgenstein, it seems, masturbation and philosophy are both expressions of living in the face of death.

Perloff sees allusion to sexual affairs in some of Wittgenstein’s taciturn remarks. He records evening visits to the baths in Kraków and notes, somewhat matter-of-factly at the start of a new year, that “my moral standing is now much lower than it was at Easter”. More affecting is his unambiguous love and desire for his Cambridge friend David Pinsent. “A letter from David!! I kissed it. Answered right away.” Pinsent didn’t survive the war. He was a test pilot in Farnborough and died in an accident in May 1918. The Tractatus – one of the most significant works in 20th-century philosophy – is dedicated to his memory.

 Private Notebooks 1914-1916 is published by WW Norton (£18.99). To support the Guardian and the Observer buy a copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

Ricoeur, Consciousness is not a given but a task

"Everything that can be said about consciousness after Freud seems to me to be contained in the following formula: Consciousness is not a given but a task." - by posing such a question we acquire a knowledge about the unconscious which is no longer realist but dialectical. Paul Ricoeur, "Consciousness and the Unconscious," in The Conflict of Interpretations, pp. 99-120. (See notes in my file, Coelho/Ricoeur, CI 05, Consciousness and the Unconscious.)

The Spirit is given to all the baptized

 

"Hence the Bishop is both teacher and disciple. He is a teacher when, endowed with the special assistance of the Holy Spirit, he proclaims to the faithful the word of truth in the name of Christ, head and shepherd. But he is a disciple when, knowing that the Spirit has been bestowed upon every baptized person, he listens to the voice of Christ speaking through the entire People of God, making it 'infallible in credendo'." (Pope Francis, Apostolic Constitution Episcopalis communio on the Syod of Bishops (15 September 2018) 5.)

Lonergan's new notion of habit (1959)

[The new notion is found, it would seem, only in a little known archival text. I think it is a very significant notion.

To clarify it, I would need to clarify: (1) the shift from faculty psychology to the flow of consciousness (TE 1959) or intentionality analysis, (2) the new psychological analysis of development and the way it is different from the metaphysical analysis found in ch. 15 of Insight, (3) the new notion of the human good, in contrast to the cosmic or intellectual account of ch. 18 of Insight.]

HM 109-110:

De systemate et historia (Fall 1959) notes that the upper blade must be related to all philosophies as mathematics is to all hypotheses and theories of physics. A system of this type can be constructed in several ways: (1) as Hegelian dialectic, (2) as something initially potential, to be perfected and determined through research, (3) as a conceptual potency, (4) as a potency of some other type, such as operational. 

This operational potency is probably related to the notion of operational habit found in the archival text 'De circulo operationum.' The latter is to be distinguished from the 'operative habit' of the scholastics insofar as operative habits reside in some single and determinate potency, whereas operational habits can reside in several potencies at once: for instance, art involves the whole person, body and soul. Further, operational habits need not be restricted to a single mind, for science is an explicitly conscious operational habit, and it is so extensive that it cannot be contained in a single mind.

Now if operational potency is the same as operational habit, then we can say that the universal viewpoint defined in this way transcends the restriction both to some single faculty and to a single mind. But perhaps we should be careful.... 

HM 111:

The philosophy of education lectures of 1959 begin to speak about a shift from faculty psychology to the flow of consciousness. 

This is matched by a new, psychological analysis of development in contrast to the metaphysical analysis of chapter 15 of Insight and by a human account of the good in contrast to the cosmic or intellectual account of chapter 18 of Insight.

The new analysis of development, formulated with help from Piaget, leads to a significant new notion of habit that, in contrast to the scholastic one, is confined neither to some single faculty nor to a single mind. [Coelho, Hermeneutics and Method 111.]