Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: A Third Collection

Titel: A Third Collection

Stichwort: Scholastik: Versäumnis (Geschichtlichkeit); 1. Prinzipien: Invarianten der menschl. Intentionalität

Kurzinhalt: Scholastic aim > one grave defect: it was content with a logically and metaphysically satisfying reconciliation (Posterior Analytics); de facto invariants of human conscious intentionality

Textausschnitt: 21/15 As already indicated, there was a slight tincture of theoretically differentiated consciousness in the Greek councils. But principally it was in the medieval period that there was undertaken the systematic and collaborative task of reconciling all that had been handed down by the church from the past. A first step was Abelard's Sic et Non, in which one hundred and fifty-eight propositions were both proved and disproved by arguments drawn from scripture, the fathers, the councils, and reason. In a second step Gilbert of Porreta used Abelard to define the existence of a question; in this fashion Abelard's Non became Videtur quod non and his Sic became Sed contra est. To these were added a general response, in which principles of solution were set forth, and then particular responses to the arguments advanced on either side. A third step was the composition of books of sentences that collected and classified relevant passages from scripture and tradition. A fourth step was the commentaries on books of sentences, in which the technique of the question was employed to reconcile or eliminate contrary views. A fifth step was to obtain a conceptual system that would enable theologians to give coherent solutions to all the questions they raised; and this coherence was sought partly by adopting and partly by adapting the Aristotelian corpus. (245; Fs)
22/15 Scholastic theology was a monumental achievement. Its influence on the church has been profound and enduring. Up to Vatican II, which preferred a more biblical turn of speech, it has provided much of the background whence proceeded pontifical documents and conciliar decrees. Yet today by and large it is abandoned, and that abandonment leaves the documents and decrees that relied on it almost mute and ineffectual. Such is the contemporary crisis in Catholicism. It is important to indicate why it exists and how it can be overcome. (245; Fs)

23/15 The Scholastic aim of reconciling differences in statements of Catholic tradition had one grave defect: it was content with a logically and metaphysically satisfying reconciliation; it did not realize how much of the multiplicity in its inheritance constituted not a logical or a metaphysical but basically a historical problem. (245f; Fs)

25/15 In contrast, modern mathematics is fully aware that its axioms are not necessary truths but freely chosen and no more than probably consistent postulates. The modern sciences ascertain, not what must be so, but only what is in itself hypothetical and so in need of verification. First principles in philosophy are not just verbal propositions but the de facto invariants of human conscious intentionality. What was named speculative intellect now turns out to be merely the operations of experiencing, understanding, and judging, performed under the guidance of the moral deliberation, evaluation, decision, that selects an appropriate method and sees to it that the method is observed. The primacy now belongs to praxis and the task of philosophy is to foster the emergence of authentic human beings. Finally, it is only on the basis of intentionality analysis that it is possible to understand human historicity or to set forth the foundations and criticize the practise of contemporary hermeneutics and critical history. (246; Fs)
26/15 The defects of Scholasticism, then, were the defects of its time. It could not inspect the methods of modern history and thereby learn the importance of history in theology. It could not inspect modern science and thereby correct the mistakes in Aristotle's conceptual system. But if we cannot blame the Scholastics for their shortcomings, we must undertake the task of remedying them. A theology is the product not only of faith but also of a culture. It is cultural change that has made Scholasticism no longer relevant and demands the development of a new theological method and style, continuous indeed with the old, yet meeting all the genuine exigences both of Christian religion and of up-to-date philosophy, science, and scholarship. (246f; Fs)


24/15 Secondly, the Aristotelian corpus, on which Scholasticism drew for the framework of its solutions, suffers from a number of defects. The Posterior Analytics set forth an ideal of science in which the key element is the notion of necessity. On this basis science is said to be of the necessary, while opinion regards the contingent; similarly, wisdom is said to be of the necessary, while prudence regards contingent human affairs. There follows the supremacy of speculative intellect, and this can be buttressed with a verbalism that attributes to common terms the properties of scientific terms. Finally, while man is acknowledged to be a political animal, the historicity of the meanings that inform human living is not grasped, and much less is there understood the possibility of history being scientific. (246; Fs)

27/15 Until that need is met, pluralism will not be exorcized. Undifferentiated consciousness will always want a commonsense theology. Scientifically differentiated consciousness will drift towards secularism. Religiously differentiated consciousness will continue to wobble between empiricism and idealism. But the worthy successor to thirteenth-century achievement will be the fruit of a fivefold differentiated consciousness, in which the workings of common sense, science, scholarship, intentionality analysis, and the life of prayer have been integrated. (247; Fs)