A Communication
A COMMUNICATION DR. BRUNI REPLIES TO A CRITIC City of the Vatican. TO the Editor:-In The Commonweal of March 20, the Reverend John F. McCormick, S.J., reviewed my recent book on Progressive...
...Hence an essential connection between theology and philosophy can be verified only from the material viewpoint-that of the content-and it is strictly confined to those few truths which I have called solidary...
...As a matter of fact, however, this synthetic task was finally achieved only in the thirteenth century, and that under the guidance of Aristotelianism, then revealed in its entirety to western Europe...
...Prudence and our sense of responsibility as Catholics warn us not to repeat lightly the episode of Galileo, thus erecting barriers to thought and science which time will eventually prove to be ridiculous-barriers which not only fetter scientific and philosophic progress in our midst, but likewise unnecessarily perturb our religious conscience...
...This prudence is inspired by the very nature of the teaching office entrusted to the Church by her Divine Founder...
...What is more, in order to find some very significant assertions on this subject, we need not stop with Boethius, to whom Father McCormick specifically refers...
...Then, too, whether we like it or not, the very Thomism taught in our ecclesiastical institutions belongs, at least in part, to a sys-tematization later than Saint Thomas...
...It is admitted that there were such contributions and that they were notable ones...
...He refers to the Thomistic system as "a system of philosophy so permeated with the spirit of the Catholic faith and...
...But it is above all the second assertion of Father McCormick which calls for comment...
...And Dr...
...But this, it seems to me, does not justify the assertion of the intimate connection of the Thomistic system with faith desired by Father McCormick...
...Sheen, the eminent American Scholastic, regards Father Zybura's thirty-six page Foreword as "probably the finest presentation of New Scholasticism ever written in America...
...Hence one does not see up to what point he wishes the Thomistic system to be regarded as thus "closely interwoven" with the Catholic faith...
...an attitude, moreover, which goes beyond the one the Church itself has actually heretofore maintained toward that system...
...these doctrines, quite numerous and designated as safe (tutae) in theological terminology, naturally remain open to free discussion...
...the second group embraces the doctrines which, given the actual state of scientific research, must be looked upon simply as not dangerous to dogma...
...so closely interwoven with the expression of the formularies of that faith, that it seems to have acquired something like the indefectibility that belongs to the faith itself...
...As a matter of fact, the same ultimate conclusions, all attuned to the Faith, were reached by two philosophies, that of Saint Augustine and that of Saint Thomas...
...Hence it is that because I am far from regarding the Thomistic system as inviolable and indefectible, I do not condemn the Neo-Scholastic movement, intent as it is on enriching, completing and eventually correcting Saint Thomas after having, of course, thoroughly understood him...
...Indeed, when there is question of truths, it is no longer possible, objectively speaking, to draw any valid distinction...
...The Catholic World, November, 1929, page 242...
...The latter founds its system on authority, while the former is based on reason...
...Without detriment to what was said above, it must be asserted that this impossibility of completely effecting the intimate connection between a system of philosophy and theology exists also from the material point of view, that is, from the viewpoint of the content of the two sciences...
...Furthermore, unless we wish to commit the folly of attempting to reduce all the philosophic thought of humanity to a Sisyphean labor, that superiority should not prejudice the efforts of posterity...
...Indeed, the attitude of the Church toward Thomism is to be interpreted in function of the following criteria: first, the Church is directly interested only in revealed truths committed to her care...
...This review contains some statements to which I cannot subscribe...
...That I was not unmindful of the contributions made to the Thomistic synthesis by the entire mediaeval period is evident from my work on Salvianus, entitled, An Apologist of Providence, and cited in Progressive Scholasticism on pages 19 and 20, where it is shown that the problem in question was definitively solved in the thirteenth century...
...Is it not repeatedly pointed out in the book that the Thomistic system is the result of a synthesis...
...it is not, strictly speaking, the whole Scholasticism of Aquinas but rather the Scholasticism which, taken in its entirety, I should regard as arranged "ad mentem sancti Thomae," as our text-books have it, and with reasonable and opportune omissions...
...this is a treatise on the philosophy of being and dogmatic formulas...
...Thus Father Descoqs, S.J., in Archives de Philosophie, Volume VI, Number IV, page 235...
...It would be a grave and condemnable error to identify a system-any system as such-of philosophy with the Faith...
...The Commonweal invites its readers to send in communications expressing individual views on all topics that are of public interest, regardless of whether or not such topics have been previously discussed in its columns.-The Editors...
...A modicum of the historical sense should suffice to show that the alleged superiority of the system of Saint Thomas over other systematizations concerns the present...
...Had these statements been connected and developed with rigorous logic, they would have yielded the systematic solution of the problem...
...TO the Editor:-In The Commonweal of March 20, the Reverend John F. McCormick, S.J., reviewed my recent book on Progressive Scholasticism...
...The Thomistic system may excel the others (as I believe it does) and therefore have a more intimate relation with the teachings of faith in so far as it contains a greater number of truths...
...On the contrary, I feel in duty bound to encourage this movement out of love for science and for the glory of the Catholic name...
...In his precious little book, De Providentia Dei, written about the middle of the fifth century, we find not indeed a finished system on the relations between faith and reason (nor can we find it in Boethius, for that matter) but a number of pertinent statements on this question...
...The first group comprises the doctrines or theses which must be regarded as certain, inasmuch as they are solidary with theological doctrines...
...See Garrigou-Lagrange, Le Sens Commun, pages 347 to 359...
...But it is a wholly different matter when one speaks of a system, as Father McCormick does in the passage under discussion...
...In conclusion, one is greatly surprised that Father McCormick has not a word to say concerning the long and scholarly Foreword with which Father Zybura has enriched the book- all the more so as some of the leading European Scholastics praise it highly in their reviews, pointing out its scholarly character, the valuable information it supplies on the various aspects of Neo-Scholasticism, and the intelligent broadness of mind of its author...
...For the rest, the ecclesiastical regulations concerning the diffusion and teaching of Thomistic philosophy likewise follow a line of action decidedly more prudent than would appear from a merely superficial examination of certain documents of the Congregation of Studies...
...None the less, it clearly reveals an attitude toward the Thomistic system which I would not call scientific...
...she holds no chair of philosophy, nor is she a propagandist of a given philosophical system...
...To be sure, there is a difference between system and system: among the various systems there is the more and the less perfect...
...one may, for example, be an adherent of Scotism or of Suarezianism...
...Moreover, if one may speak of a relation of identity, that relation is verified only as to the truths of the respective domains of knowledge...
...And when speaking of a system attuned to the Faith, it is well to point out that it is not absolutely necessary to profess Thomism...
...For it should be borne in mind that because of the weakness of our intellect, we can reach final conclusions, fundamental theories by various ways, and therefore through the inclusion of diverse intermediate doctrines...
...Gerardo Bruni...
...And yet, what a difference between the philosophic system of the one and that of the other...
...Hence, too, the first statement of Father McCormick does not lend itself to a precise refutation...
...In the first place, the work in question is far from asserting that the problem of the relations between faith and reason presented itself for the first time to Albert the Great and Saint Thomas, and that it was fundamentally solved by them without contributions from preceding thinkers...
...For if we consider the question from the formal viewpoint of the process through which the one and the other science reach their affirmations and conclusions and systematize their knowledge-which is the main point in question-how is it possible to establish that intimate connection between any philosophic system and Catholic theology...
...In the same breath, however, the reviewer denies any "essential association" between the Thomistic system and the Catholic faith...
...I believe, then, that the theologian cannot advance greater claims than these without being disloyal to the nature of his own teaching, without going beyond the limits of his own jurisdiction, and without detriment to the Church...
...No historian of philosophy can fail to recognize that the Thomistic system was already impaired and in many points modified by the Scholastic thought of the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, as well as by anti-Scholastic thinkers...
...There are some theologians who tend to encroach on the territory of philosophy as well as on that of experimental science, and thus to muzzle the one and the other...
...we can go back to the Patristic period where, beside the great writers, we find one but little known, namely, Salvianus of Marseilles...
...It is well known that many thinkers prior to the thirteenth century announced important truths concerning the age-old problem and threw light on many of its aspects...
...The Church would have nothing to gain from the attempt to make the philosophical system of Saint Thomas enjoy a large share of her own indefec-tibility...
...By virtue of this fact the many philosophic truths enriching the Thomistic system are to be no longer regarded as only intimately connected but as wholly identical with the truths taught by faith on the same subject...
...secondly, in view of the impossibility (pointed out above) of establishing from the formal standpoint any essential connection between philosophy (as a system) and theology, the regulations of the Church concerning the doctrinal content of Thomism must be interpreted as necessarily including two groups of truths in the Thomistic system...
Vol. 11 • December 1929 • No. 5
