Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: A Second Collection

Titel: A Second Collection

Stichwort: Erneuerung der Theologie, aggiornamento; 1680, Butterfield: Naturwissenschaft; "dogmatische" Theologie, Melchior Cano

Kurzinhalt: ... if theology is to be brought up to date, it must have fallen behind the times. Again, if we are to know what is to be done to bring theology up to date, ...

Textausschnitt: 55a Any theology of renewal goes hand in hand with a renewal of theology. For "renewal" is being used in a novel sense. Usually in Catholic circles "renewal" has meant a return to the olden times of pristine virtue and deep wisdom. But good Pope John has made "renewal" mean "aggiornamento," "bringing things up to date." (Fs)

55b Obviously, if theology is to be brought up to date, it must have fallen behind the times. Again, if we are to know what is to be done to bring theology up to date, we must ascertain when it began to fall behind the times, in what respects it got out of touch, in what respects it failed to meet the issues and effect the developments that long ago were due and now are long overdue. (Fs)

55c The answer I wish to suggest takes us back almost three centuries to the end of the seventeenth century and, more precisely, to the year 1680. For that, it seems, was the time of the great beginning. Then it was that Herbert Butterfield placed the origins of modern science, then that Paul Hazard placed the beginning of the Enlightenment, then that Yves Congar placed the beginning of dogmatic theology. When modern science began, when the Enlightenment began, then the theologians began to reassure one another about their certainties. Let me comment briefly on this threefold coincidence. (Fs)

55d When Professor Butterfield placed the origins of modern science at the end of the seventeenth century, he by no means meant to deny that from the year 1300 on numerous discoveries were made that since have been included within modern science and integrated with it. But he did make the point that, at the time of their first appearance, these discoveries could not be expressed adequately. For, the dominant cultural context was Aristotelian, and the discoverers themselves had Aristotelian backgrounds. Thus there existed a conflict between the new ideas and the old doctrines, and this conflict existed not merely between an old guard of Aristotelians and a new breed of scientists but, far more gravely, within the very minds of the new scientists. For new ideas are far less than a whole mentality, a whole climate of thought and opinion, a whole mode of approach, and procedure, and judgment. Before these new ideas could be formulated accurately, coherently, cogently, they had to multiply, cumulate, coalesce to bring forth a new system of concepts and a new body of doctrine that was somehow comparable in extent to the Aristotelian and so capable of replacing it. (Fs)

56a In brief, Professor Butterfield distinguished between new ideas and the context or horizon within which they were expressed, developed, related. From about the beginning of the fourteenth century the new ideas multiplied. But only towards the close of the seventeenth century did there emerge the context appropriate to these ideas. The origin of this context is for Professor Butterfield the origin of modern science and, in his judgment, "it outshines everything since the rise of Christianity and reduces the Renaissance and the Reformation to the rank of mere episodes, mere internal displacements, within the system of medieval Christendom."1 (Fs) (notabene)

56b Coincident with the origins of modern science was the beginning of the Enlightenment, of the movement Peter Gay recently named the rise of modern paganism.2 Moreover, while this movement is commonly located in the eighteenth century, the French academician Paul Hazard has exhibited already in full swing between the years 1680 and 1715 a far-flung attack on Christianity from almost every quarter and in almost every style.3 It was a movement revolted by the spectacle of religious persecution and religious war. It was to replace the God of the Christians by the God of the philosophes and, eventually, the God of the philosophes by agnosticism and atheism. It gloried in the achievements of Newton, criticized social structures, promoted political change, and moved towards a materialist, mechanist, determinist interpretation no less of man than of nature.4 (Fs)

57a It would be unfair to expect the theologians of the end of the seventeenth century to have discerned the good and the evil in the great movements of their time. But at least we may record what in fact they did do. They introduced "dogmatic" theology. It is true that the word "dogmatic" had been previously applied to theology. But then it was used to denote a distinction from moral, or ethical, or historical theology. Now it was employed in a new sense, in opposition to scholastic theology. It replaced the inquiry of the quaestio by the pedagogy of the thesis. It demoted the quest of faith for understanding to a desirable, but secondary, and indeed, optional goal. It gave basic and central significance to the certitudes of faith, their presuppositions, and their consequences. It owed its mode of proof to Melchior Cano and, as that theologian was also a bishop and inquisitor, so the new dogmatic theology not only proved its theses, but also was supported by the teaching authority and the sanctions of the Church.5 (Fs)

1.Kommentar (31.01.08): Cf. David Walsh über den Nominalismus.

57b Such a conception of theology survived right into the twentieth century, and even today in some circles it is the only conception that is understood. Still, among theologians its limitations and defects have been becoming more and more apparent, especially since the 1890's. During the last seventy years, efforts to find remedies and to implement them have been going forward steadily, if unobtrusively. The measure of their success is the radically new situation brought to light by the Second Vatican Council. (Fs)

58a There is, perhaps, no need for me here to insist that the novelty resides not in a new revelation or a new faith, but in a new cultural context. For a theology is a product not only of the religion it investigates and expounds but also of the cultural ideals and norms that set its problems and direct its solutions. Just as theology in the thirteenth century followed its age by assimilating Aristotle, just as theology in the seventeenth century resisted its age by retiring into a dogmatic corner, so theology today is locked in an encounter with its age. Whether it will grow and triumph, or whether it will wither to insignificance, depends in no small measure on the clarity and the accuracy of its grasp of the external cultural factors that undermine its past achievements and challenge it to new endeavors. (Fs)