Development of Doctrine Would Meet Newman's Own Widely Spread and So Long Enduring, Must Have in It, and Exacting Standards of Intellectual and Spiritual Integrity

Home , Development of doctrine, Integralism, John Montgomery Cooper, Lists of Catholics, Neil McCluskey, Nicholas Lash

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TITLE Catholic intellectual Excellence: Challenges and Visions. INSTITUTION Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, Washington, n.c. REPORT NO ISBN-1-55833-103-4 PUB DATE 91 NOTE 66p. AVAILABLE FROM Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, One Dupont Circle, Washington, DC 20036 (Additional copies $5.00 each for 1-9 copies; 10 or more copies $4.50 each, prepaid). PUB TYPE Collected Works - Serials (022) JOURNAL CIT Current Issues in Catholic Higher Education; v12 nl Sum 1991

EDRS PRICE MF01/PC03 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Catholics; *Church Related Colleges; *Educational Quality; *Educational Theories; *Higher Education; Philosophy; Sciences; Technology; Theological Education IDENTIFIERS Lonergan (Bernard); *Newman (Cardinal John Henry); *Roman Catholic Church

ABSTRACT This publication on the subject of Catholic intellectual excellence at the university level reproduces sixpapers from an annual meeting and four papers on John Henry Cardinal Newman in celebration of the 100th anniversary of his death in 1890. The papers on Newman include the following: HNewman's Idea of a University: Is It Viable Today?" (E. J. Miller); "The Newman-Lonergan Connection: Implications for Doing Theology in North America" (C. M. Streeter); "Newman and 'The Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian'" (G. Magill); "Cardinal Newman: A Study in Integrity" (j. R. Quinn); and "Faculty Address" (J. L. Heft). The annual meetingpapers include: "The Catholic Imagination and The Catholic University" (A. M. Greeley); "The Church and its Responsibility to Foster Knowledge" (M. J. Buckle:); "How is Intellectual Excellence in Philosophyto be Understood by a Catholic Philosopher? What has Philosophy to Contribute to Catholic Intellectual Excellence?" (A. MacIntyre); "Catholic Intellectual Excellence: Science and Technology" (A.B. Hayes); "Theological Excellence in tne Catholic University" (M. Collins); and "Response Upon Reception of the 1991 Rev.Theodore M. He urgh, CSC, Award" (W. J. Ong). (JB)

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-PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS U II DEPARTMENT Of IFOUCAVON Oftce oi Educalional Research and hhprovement MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION Assoc. of Catholic CENTER IERIC, yTh,5 document has been reproduced La rece.yed Orem the pftrjonOf ofulimillheh Colleges & Univ. OtVnahng ,t C !Amor changel hive been ma I to 'inform, IIPtOduChOn duahtv

2 Ponta ot wine or oprmons staled .n th,a docu- TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES mnt do not necssarily represent Diktat INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) OEM posilbon ot potty Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities BOARD OF DIRECTORS Chair: Joseph A. O'Hare, SJ Fordham University, NY Vice Chair: Author E. Hughes University of San Diego, CA Immediate Past Chair: Kathleen Feeley, SSND College of Nola* Dame of Maryland TERMS TO 1992 Lawrence Biondi, SJ Saint Louis University, MO Bartley MacPhaidin, CSC Stonehill College, MA Jeanne O'Laughlin, OP Barry University, FL Timothy O'Meara University of Notre Dame, IN William J. Sullivan, SJ Seattle University, WA TERMS TO 1993 Thomas S. Acker, SJ Wheeling Jesuit College, WV Louis DeThomasis, FSC Saint Mary's College of Minnesota Brigid Driscoll, RSHM Marymount College, NY Isabelle Keiss, RSM Gwynedd-Mercy College, PA Paul J. Reiss Saint Michael's College, VT TERMS TO 1994 Theodore Drahmann, FSC Christian Brothers University, TN Margaret Huber, CDP LaRoche College, PA Thomas A. Manion St. Norbert College, WI Patricia A. McGuire Trinity College, DC William B. Neenan, SJ Boston College, MA ex-efficio Catherine McNamee, CSJ President, NCEA ACCU EXECUTIVE STAFF Alice Gallin, OSU Executive Director Paul J. Gallagher Associate Executive Director

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Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION .o Alice Gallin, OSLI 3 Newman's Idea of a University: Is it Viable Today? Edward I. Miller 4 The Newman-Lonergan Connection: Implications for Doing Theology in North America Carla Mae Streeter, OP 12 Newman and "The Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian Gerard Magill 17 Cardinal Newman: A Study in Integrity John R. Quinn 24 Faculty Address James L. Heft, SM 31

ANNUAL MEETING PAPERS 35 The Catholic Imagination and The Catholic University Andrew M. Greeley 36 The Church and its Responsibility to Foster Knowledge Michael J. Buckley, SI 41 How is Intellectual Excellence in Philosophy to be Understood by a Catholic Philosopher? What has Philosophy to Contribute to Catholic Intellectual Excellence? Alasdair MacIntyre 47 Catholic Intellectual Excellence: Science and Technology Alice Bourke Hayes 51 Theological Excellence in the Catholic University Mary Collins, OSB 57 Response Upon Reception of the 1991 Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, CSC, Award Walter I. Ong, SI 61 ".717,77,ftlrry.rnnrrrr ,

INTRODUCTION

On August 11,1990, we celebrated the 100th anniver- solid grounding in a discipline, and thus the adequacy sary of the death of John Henry Cardinal Newman. This of the preparation of students for college or university event could not go unnoticed in the halls of academe. study isso very important. Although many of the For Newman was not only an outstanding churchman, phrases we use to speak of the meaning of "Catholic" a convert of tremendous significance, but also a firm when it modifies the noun "university" are descriptive believer in the life of the mind and its relationship to the of values that we believe our tradition adds to the intel- life of the spirit. His discourses on the purposes of a lectual life, we are never satisfied that our articulation Catholic university, contained in The Idea of a University, equals the reality. Often we settle for the values we have been a reference point for thousands of commen consider characteristic of the environment on our cam- cement speakers and eminent Catholic writers. pus, e.g., attention to each person, fairness, respect for Several Catholic universities took note of this occasion others, compassion. While these are admirable human by sponsoring symposia dealing with various aspects of and Christian values, they are not peculiar to the Newman's thought and writings. In order to share some academic world. The role we must seek to carry out of the wealth that came to the surface during these precisely because we are Catholic universities is well events, we have chosen in this issue to publish three expressed in Ex Corde Ecclesiae: papers given at the symposium at St. Louis University, those by Rev. Gerard Magill, Dr. Edward Miller, and Through the encounter which it establishes Carla Mae Streeter, OP. In addition, we are reprinting between the unfathomable richness of the sal- Archbishop John Quinn's presentation at a symposium vific messave of the Gospel and the variety and at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles en- immensity of the fields of knowledge in which titled, "Cardinal Newman: A Study of Integrity," and that richness is incarnated by it, a Catholic university enables the church to institute an an address to the faculty of the University of Dayton by Rev. James L. Heft. incomparably fertile dialogue with people of The continued inspiration given by Newman to all every culture .. In the world today, charac- those engaged in the work of Catholic higher education terized by such rapid developments in science was manifested in the choice of a ti.eme for our annual and technology, the tasks of a Catholic univer- meeting in 1991. Leaders in our institutions who have sity assume an ever greater importance and been exploring in depth the basis of their "Catholic urgency. Scientific and technological discoveries create an enormous economic and identity" over the past twenty years found it useful once again to focus on the central mission of the university, industrial growth, but they also inescapably Catholic intellectual excellence. To lead them in the require the correspondingly necessary search discussion, they invited Rev. Andrew Greeley, who for meaning, in order to guarantee that the focused on the Catholic imagination as crucial to a true new discoveries be used for the authentic good of individuals and of human society as a Catholic intellectual life, and Rev. Michael Buckley, SJ, who sought to lay a foundation for understanding the whole. If it.s'.*.e responsibility of every relationship between faith and culture, with particular university to search for such meaning, a emphasis on the scientific Aspects of contemporary cul- Catholic university is called in a particular ture.Attention was given to specific disciplines the way to respond to this need; its Christian in- following morning by Alasdair Macintyre (phflosophy), spiration enables it to include the moral, Mai y Collins, OSB (religious studies and theology) and spiritual, and religious dimension in its re- Alice Hayes (the sciences). The conclusion one would search, and to evaluate the attainments of have to draw is that interdisciplinary studies and/or science and technology in the perspective of faculty discussions are essential if we are to make our the totality of the human person. universities places of vibrant intellectual life. Such in- Alice Gallin, OSU terdisciplinary conversations presuppose, however, Executive Director

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Newman's Idea of a University: Is it Viable Today?

Edward J, Miller

To consider fully Cardinal Newman's views on Let us first turn to Newman's thoughts on university education is to contemplate nearly everything he wrote education, with some brief background about their his- and did, for it was he who said of himself, "from first to torical context and about the primary materials themsel- last, education, in this large sense of the word, has been ves.In 1845 the British government established the my line."1 To assess the contemporary situation of col- non-denominational Queen's University in Ireland to leges and universities is to undertake a practically end- provide an alternative to the Anglican-based Trinity less effort, all of which is compounded by the constraints College Dublin, opening college campuses in Belfast, of a limited essay. To attempt too much willensure that Cork, and Galway. (In the Roman Catholic parlance of nothing is done well, and to select issues will invite that day, both the Queens Colleges and Trinity College overlooked aspects. I must chance the latter, however, itself were considered "mixed" education, for Catholic with the conviction that Newman's educational phibsophy youth would mix with non-Catholics in attending has important views to contribute to some contem- them.) Under pressure from the Vatican, the Irish porary questions about our universities, while to other bishops at the Synod of Thurles (1850) prohibited invol- current issues it in surely dated. vement of Catholics at Queens colleges, though some Two recent discussions on tiniversity education invite Irish bishops had been favorably disposed to them be- a particular selection of topics in examining Newman cause they were non-sectarian. The Vatican enjoined the anew. These discussions bore on the nature of Catholic bishops to establish a Catholic university in Ireland, colleges and universities and on the nature of liberal arts modelled on Louvain, and a funding drive was begun higher education. On August 15, 1990, Pope John Paul by Archbishop Cullen in 1851. Cullen, who first met II issued his apostolic constitution on Catholic univer- Newman in Rome in 1847 while Newman was prepar- sities, Ex Conk lEcclesiae, a document whose prior drafts ing for ordination, wrote him in April, 1851, to invite him engaged many Catholic educators during the previous to lecture on educationto le:ture in Dublin "against decade. During that same decade, William Bennett, first Mixed Education" at,. Newman observed in his journal.3 as chairman of the National Endowment for the In a subsequent personal visit to Newman during the Humanities and later as secretary of education, chal- summer, Cullen offered him the lectorship of the new lenged the American university community to university, which Newman la ter and somewhat hesitantly reexamine its undergraduate core curriculum, having accepted.' been convinced that rightful disciplinary content and Newman first conceived a trilogy of lectures, but the curricular cohesion in the liberal arts had been aban- scheim grew into fivp public lectures, which he offered doned by most undergraduate institutions.2 in the spring of 1852.' Later that summer and autumn in In examining these questions three theses shall Birmingham, Newman wrote five more discourses, and emerge, and an advanced view of them is helpful. They these ten discourses were published at year's endas are as follows: (1) A discussion examining truth takes a Discourses on the' Scope and Nature of University Education. different direction than if the discussion proceededon Addressed to the Catholics of Dublin!' After Newman was knowledge, and here are to be situated the pope and the formally installed as rector on June 4, 1854, he gave cardinal; (2) A discussion about academic content con- occasional lectures at the university over the next four cludes differently than if it were based on process, and years. These lectures as well as some articles he wrote here one finds William Bennett and John Henry New- for the school newspaper, TheCatholic lin iversity Gazette, man; (3) Newman himself is best understood when his were brought tlgether as "Lectures and Essays on penchant for dialectics is appreciated. University Subjects" and published as a companion volume to a 1859 edition of those 1852 discourses; New- man deleted his original fifth discourse since he feared Dr. Miller is dean of the graduate sclwol at the College of New Rochelle. it went against the thinking of the pope.7 In 1873 he

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brought both segments into one volume, calling it The party,"11 answering the latter's charges that(1) religion Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated, Minor changes is not a suitable intellectual endeavor since religion at were made up Until his last edition of 1889, and this is best is a matter of private opinions and (2) the only the text now known as Idea. knowledge that matters serves the commonweal and is Newman wrote other essays for that university practically oriented; the liberal arts are simply not use- newspaper which are often overlooked by investigators, ful. I believe Newman used these discourses to state the yet they are very important for concretely illustrating his Oxford case in his words, and along the way sufficiently conception of a university. He published these articles distancing himself from those aspects of Oxford, then in 1856 under the title of Offke and Work of Universities, and now, which troubled him. and they are now tucked away in the third volume of his One of those troubling matters was not developed in Historical Sketches.In addition to all these "textual Idea but came under sustained treatment in Historical materials" one needs to be aware of Newma n's pertinent Sketches. It was the college or tutorial system in contrast correspondence and of various memoranda lw wrote to the professorial or university system. In Newman's about the Dublin university venture.8 view, the German schools educated through university What aim lay behind these educational writings? There professors without benefit of college residence; Ox- is no single fundamental objective. Newman had dif- ford /Cambridge education was in the main sequestered ferent audiences and goals in mind, and this fact invites into resident colleges, the university itself having an confusion as he moves, both rhetorically and argumen- impotent structure. The professor/college contrast, or tatively, between goals. For example, many claim some- the metaphors Athens/Rome that Newman develops at what too facilely that Newman wanted fundamentally length in these essays as illustrative of the contrast,are to justify the place of theology in the curriculum. That meant to describe the tenskm between freedom and gml, I am coiwinced, was a secondary preoccupation. regulation, inquiry and structure, in the education of Newman surely hal a primary concern to urge the value students.After ably describing their characters and of Catholic education, "unmixed education"as he called their competing aims, Newman's option is for both, if it, since some of the Irish bishops and many of the laity they are allowed to interact dialectically. To this impor- saw no harm in the secularind Queens colleges. Theol- tant feature of dialectics I shall return. ogy was to have its rightful and necessary place, as a In the preface to the discourses in Idea Newman states discipline among disciplines, but more overarchingwas his thesis that a1university "is a place of teaching univer- to be the "idea" which makes an institution to be a sal knowledge." le" After eight of those discourses he flatly genuine university; this idea was possible, indeed states that everything to this point has been considering strengthened in Newman's view, withina Catholic in- a university per se, rot a university as Catholic. The stitution if the rights of the institution and the church latter is treated in the ninth discourse. For the moment, were mutually respected by each other. Furthermore, however, I wish to note the linchpin of every other as shall be seen, other aims engaged Newman's ener- discourse in Idea.It is his supple use of the word gies. "knowledge." What about those laity, those potential professors and To sense his own struggle with the word and its students without whom the new university would not correct notion, lw uses other terms at times though they march? In IlistoricalSketclies there is a curious discussion are not quite synonymous. It is mental cultivation, it is of public opinion which Newman calls the "main adver- onlargeownt, it is philosophy." To speak in Thomistic sary" to the new enterprise. The university, he says, "has categories, Newman strains to describe the perfection of to forc i? its way abruptly into an existing state of society a habit, as for example virtue is the word to describe the which has never duly felt its absence," and :! butts perfected habit of doing good, and health describes against a "reluctant or perplexed public opinion."9 Some- somatic well-being. He wishes to desrribe a cultivated what later, in describing the zeal andcourage of Irish mental excellence, and at one point in the second half of people, "springing fresh and vigorous from the sepulchre Idea he calls it "the philosonhy of an imperial intel- of famine" and religious oppression, "it setsme marvell- lect."14 Furthermote, and againto speak Thomistically, ing," he noted, "to find some of those very men, who have he uses the word knowledge materially and formally been heroically achieving impossibilities all their lives depending upon his aim at the moment. Knowledge, long, now beginning to scruple about adding one little materially, refers to what is being known, and thus sneaking impossibility to the list."10 As is known,save for Newman will argue that no branch of knowledge, no the medical school the university venture failed, andone academic discipline as it were, can be a priori excluded failure was its inability to recruit sufficient students. from the curriculum. Knowledge, formally, refers to the Another major aim was to justify university education mental capacity by which what is known is properly in the Oxford mode, that is to say, the cultivation of known. It is the capacity to discriminate facts and ideas, intellect vis-a-vis whatever is knowable. In onesense the to order them, to perceive relations between them, and first eight di.scourse of Idea recapitulate the turn-of-the- ultimately to judge them and act upon them. In this century argument between Oxford and the "Edinburgh respect, perhaps, Newman's greatest commentator is

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, Bernard Lonergan if one can sense this impress of superficial knowledge for genuine knowledge. He Newman's educational psychology within the chapters called such viewiness "nutshell truths for the breakfast of Lonergan's Insight.15 table."19 A reader of Idea might well object: Newman has much The genuine knowledge which university education to say about theology, indeed about Catholic theology, engenders, and which Newman at times simply calls in those first eight dixourses, and therefore he has much "philosophy,"20 isan active and formative power of the therein that would affirm what constitutes a university mind that reduces to order and meaning the sundry as Catholic. I stand my ground. Every discipline, even things one learns. Ile likens it to arriving at a center of theology, is subsumed under the more important dis- thought or to "first principles," such first principles cussion of what constitutes knowledge, both in its being practically a signature of Newmanian thinking.21 material and formal sense.16 In these discourses theol- In the essay, "Discipline of Mind," he writes: "The result ogy needs to be justified as an academic subject as does is a formation of mindthat is, a habit of order and any other subject, and Newman argues its justification system, a habit of referring every accession or knowledge on the non-dogmatic grounds of educational philosophy, to what we already know, and of adjusting the one with not on the imperatives of revelation or magisterium nor the other; and, moreover, as such a habit implies, the on the precisely Catholic nature of the university as actual acceptance and use of certain principles as centres such. of thought, around which our knowledge grows and is As already noted, Newman began the discourses with located. Where this critical faculty exists, history is no the flat statement that a university is a place of teaching longer a mere storybook, or biography a romance; universal knowledge. He emphasized teaching in order orators and publications of the day are no longer infal- to assert two matters: (1) The university is an intellectual lible authorities; eloquent diction is no longer a sub- service to students, not a moral or indoctrinating stitute for matter, nor bold statements, or lively enterprise as might occur in a seminary; (2) It is a descriptions, a substitute for proof."22 Newman draws pedagogical enterprise and not per se a research en- an analogy with a blind person to whom sight deavor. In Newman's day there were academies and miraculously returns and into whom pours a c )nfusing royal societies whose business it was to extend the fron- world of colors, lines, hues and shapes, without drift or tiers of knowledge, and he noted the quandary which meaning and "like the wrong side of a piece of tapestry obfuscates many contemporary tenure discussions: "to orcarpet."23 Only by degrees and through trial and discover and to teach are...distinct gifts, and are not error does that person arrive at ordered and meaningful commonly found united in the same person."17 Teach- perceptions. In similar fashion also must the arduous ing, in other words, involves students in its very notion, task of intellectual cultivation proceed. and having asserted only this much in the opening pages Some implications follow from this vision of knowledge of Idea, he leaves aside until the essays in I listorkal as centered thought or philosophy. The individual mind Sketches the fuller discussion of what he terms the cannot grasp the whole at once; it progresses by grasp- "professorial system" to describe teaching. The remainder ing aspects of the whole and arranpng those aspects into of Idea focuses on that illusive word, knowle4. ever more fundamental views which approach the un- The notion of knowledge is described variously. From derstanding of the whole in itself. Discourse Three one angle it is the very aim of the university, and in this transposes this personal mental law to the communal the steadiness, the comprehensiveness and the ver- mind of a university and portrays the aspects of the satility of intellect," and having "a connected view or universal knowledge as the disciplines: history, physics, grasp of things, which allows entry into a subject with theology, etc. Secondly, to ignore an aspect ( .c., a dis- comparative ease."18 All such depictions of knowledge cipline) leads to deficient knowledge, much as if refer not to the accumulation of facts and ideas but Newman's man-born-blind chose to ignore a particular rather to flu. digestion of such things and the making of color in describing a rainbow, .:nd here of course is them into a pattern or ordered configuration, into what situated Newman's famous argument for the necessity may simply be called a view. If we today are inclined to of including theology in a university's purview. One term someone possessed of many facts and ideas a cannot understand the total universe without reference knowledgeable person, Newman is rather thinking of to its Creator any more than one can view a muscle and what we would term an insightful person. call it an explanation of motion without considering free Care need be taken of Newman's use of the word view. will.Indeed, the a priori exclusion of any discipline There is a spurious knowledge he termed "viewiness" invites not only deficient knowledge hut, more alarm- which he thought a chief evil of his day. "An intellectual ingly to Newman, erroneous pontification, for wherever man, as the world now conceives of him, is one who is there is an excluded discipline, other disciplines will full of 'views' on all subjects...of the day. It is almost encroach on its land and opine on its issues from their thought a disgrace not to have a view at a moment's own inadequate first principles.24 The psychologist will notice on any question." Periodical literature catered to play the ethicist, the physicist will play the theologian of this tendency, in Newman's opinion, and it served up nature.

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A third implication follows which is particularly ger- of the academy and the guidelines of academic freedom. mane to the discussion involving Pope John Paul II. The Such a supply and confident use of the word knowledge knowledge of which Newman speaks, and which is provides the necessary elbow room for university en- described in terms of moving ever closer to centers of deavors, a phrase indeed which Newman in other situa- thought, is of its very nature a progressive coming to tions calls upon.3D know. It is not ready made insight; it is not without false Mention must be made of Discourse Nine which steps; and there are not to be sanitized topics for the sake describes the church's role in a Catholic university, al- of "pious ears." Of the latter, one recalls Newman's though the leitmotif remains knowledge; the "duties of famous statement that "it is a contradiction in terms to the Church towards knowledge" is the discourse's title. attempt a sinless literature of sinful man."2 Such Having earlier argued that the completeness of academic knowledge, whether considered formally as a mental inquiry requires theology's contribution, Newman here habit to be attained, or considered materially as subject addresses the de facto tendency of human inquiry on matter, enjoys within the university context the freedom rationalistic principles alone "to measure and propor- to be wrong, if I may so put it. Newman did not wish tion Irevelationi by an earthly standards...to tune it, as erroneous knowledge to be sure, but he wished the free it were, to a different key, and to reset its harmonies." play of ideas to have elbow room in the interest of Lest the university become a rival of the church in getting at truth. "It is the very law of the human mind in theologka I matters, the church consequently "breathes

its inquiry to make its advances by a process which. her own pure and unearthly spirit into it .and watches

..is circuitous. There are no shortcuts to knowledge. over its teaching .. . and superintends itsaction."31 The In scientific researches error may be said, without church, then, has an active role to play. paradox, to be,in some instances the way to truth, and It is so typical of Newman to consider matters in their the only way."-6 Such faith in the merits of open and free existential propensities, e.g., his constant references to inquiry, I am arguing, is best provided for by setting up sinful beings such as we are, that he is sensitive to the the discussion on the word knowledge rather than truth, myopias of "reason alone" in matters of revelation. The which is what Newman did methodology of physical science urges a private-judg- Note some of the things he had to say. In Historical ment view of revelation, and that of literature a natural Sketches the university "is the place to which a thousand explanation of the human condition. While these con- schools make contribution; in which the intellect may tentions are argued with greater nuance and with allow- safely range and speculate, sure to find its equal in some able exceptions in part two of Idea, they frame the antagonist activity, and its judge in the tribunal of truth, contention of Discourse Nine that revelation is It is a place where inquiry is pushed forward, and rash- safeguarded by an agency greater than reason alone, ness rendered innocuous, and error exposed, by the which is the Holy Spirit acting through the church.It collision of mind with mind, and knowledge with would be strange to find Newman speaking in Idea on knowledge."27 Isone to fear this collision of knowledge this matter differently than in his other major works, with knowledge? In describing the "imperial intellect," e.g., Essay on the Developnwnt of Doctrine, where the hear him again: "If he [the true university person] has church is the God-given teacher of the revelation in one cardinal maxim in his philosophy, it is that truth Christ.32 cannot be contrary to trut:h; if he has a second, it is that On the other hand, the question remains hew the truth often seems contrary to truth; and, if a third, it is church is to superintend the functioning of the oniver- the practical conclusion, that we must be patient with sity, granting that for Newman it indeed enjoys this role. such appearances, and not be hasty to pronounce them Everything he mentions of freedom of inquiry, of neces- to be really of a more formidable character."28 Further- sary elbow room, of giving error sufficient rope must more, for Newman, if there is any academic discipline also be taken into account, and indeed in a dialectical which from its sovereign position ought to bear calmly fashion do inquiry and authority, "Athens and Rome," the collision of knowledge with knowledge, it is theol- come together in his scheme. One must reread the fifth ogy. For he says that an objection posed to Christian faith chapter of Newman's Apologia, perhaps the most subtle could (I ) be not proven in the end, (2) turn out not to be of his writings, to sense the conflict between the "restless contradictory, or (3) not be contradictory to anything intellect" and the weight of church authority, and his really revealed. Yet, if at this moment it appears con- dialectical, almost paradoxical, contention that they are tradictory, then one "should be content to wait, knowing sustained by conflict with each other. Furthermore, one that error is like other delinquents; give it rope enough, must recall that he dropped his original Fifth Discourse and it will be found to have a strong suicidal propen- from the 1859 edition, not because he agreed with Pius sity."29 IX's position that Catholic doctrine condition every dis- Language such as this wouid emerge only awkwardly cipline to be taught in the universityhe noted that his in a schema based on veritas where the focus is not on "idea" expressed there was otherwisebut because of the process but on the end result. Newman's language tact, i.e., that oft-noted "principle of reserve" in his is more readily consonant with the contemporary notion writings. Lest this interpretation seem contrived, note --77,11e171"4' r-17 -! !=t z f "1'377 7-7.-t.1fi '"1".f. r.c.'44`7.4"' 4 ;Irpria7=1,1prCsirr-drFr_PARINFffi.petworiirmezew

this letter of 1868 to the person who succeeded himas missionary and a preacher, displaying his science in its university rector: "It is essential that the Church should most complete and most winning form, pouring it forth have a living presence and control in the action of the with the zeal of enthusiasm, and lighting up hisown University. But still, till the Bishops leave the University love of it in the breasts of his hearers.. ..It is a seat of to itself, till the University governs itself, till it is able to wisdom,... anAlma Mater of the rising generation."38 act as a free being, it will be but a sickly child."33 How would Newman's ideal professor teach? We Leaving, for the moment, Newman's thinkingon the catch a glimpse in his essay, "Elementary Subjects," in first thesis I framed at the outset, letme turn to my which he demonstrates how he himself would teach second thesis, viz., the question ofprocess versus con- Greek or Latin to an undergraduate. Readers of New- tent in the educational process, the content aspect man understandably jump these pages with their for- having been recently focused upon by William Bennett. bidding sections of Greek and Latin texts, yetone would In Newman's essay on "Christianity and Letters" the perceive here how the professor prods and pushes the key question is posed: "how best to strengthen, refine, student to accuracy of judgment and to integration of and enrich the intellectual powers"?34 The question new insight with what is previously known. The mist,

brings together what I have been terming the material as Newman says, "clears up. .and the rays of light fall and formal aspects of knowledge, that is, what subjects back upon their centres. It is this haziness of intellectual beget the genuine habit of mental cultivation? Although vision which is the malady" of the current age.39 Newman's ready answer regarding subject matter in The Bennett debate, lately assumed by hissuccessor this essay is the classics because their track record inso at NEH, Lynne Cheney, focused on the content of the doing has 'men proven, it remained true for him that core curriculum, which in fact meant the Western cul- other sub!ects could provide that selfsante exactness and tural heritage.40 It equated exposure to that content with suppleness of mind if they were properly taught. In the genuine liberal education. While Newman is indeed essay "Discipline of Mind" Newman mentions various bullish about much of the same material, he opts instead subjects that can work. "Consider whata trial of acute- for the pedagogical process over the contentas the effec- ness, caution, and exactness it is to master, and still more tive cause of genuine education. Indeed, in Newman's to prove, a number of definitions. Again, what anexer- vocabulary, on might even say that curricularcontent is cise in logic is classification, what an exercise in logical a "structure" compared to the "personal influence" of precision it is to understand and enunciate the proof of the professor, and of that distinction he noted pungent- any of the more difficult propositions of Euclid .A od ly, "With influence there is life, without it there isnone so of any other sciencechemistry, or comparative . .An academical system without personal influence anatomy, or natural history; it does not matter what it of teachers upon pupils, is an arctic winter; it will create is, if it be really studied and mastered."3' an ice-bound, petrified, cast-iron University, and noth- The pedagogical process of educating students ismore ing else."41 Admittedly, in this text, Newmanwas view- important than academic content itself in Newman's ing academic residences as the structure, yet his idea scheme, and for achieving the aim ofa university it is holds for structured credit distributions if considered key. His full analysis is lodged in the extended discus- only in themselves. The act of teaching is primary in the sion of the "professorial system" in Historic& Sketches aim of a university to educate students, and what is where it is distinguished from the "college system." By taught is somewhat secondary to it. Thus would I situate the latter he means the structured residential life of the Newman's observations on a much later debate. university (the realm of administrators, the deans, the The recent apostolic constitutionon Catholic univer- governing polity). The distinction is examined throughout sities, on its very first paw, definesa Catholic university's these little known writings. It is Athens comparedto aim as existentially unitiog two seemingly antithetical Rome; itis individuality compared to structure, it is orders: "the search for twt and tile certainty of already freedom compared to law; it is influence compared to knowing the font of truth."42 The theme of truth isso system. I shall return to the distinction below in view of central to what follows that earlier drafts of the docu- its dialectical interplay, but first a few remarkson the ment co-opted the university into the church'sown professorial system itself. evangelizing mission, an incorporation which ifstrong- Though many things are needed to constitutea univer- ly pushed would have troublingconsequences for sity in its fullness, in essence, however,a university "is academic fireedom and for legitimate institutional inde- a place for the communication and cirfulation of pendence." thought, by means of personal intercourse."' 6 Whileone Under the press of many interventions, and notably may learn from hooks, "the air, the life which makes it those by American university presidents, the final docu- live in us, you moist catch all these from those in whom ment softens the connection with the church's teaching it lives already.". 7 It is the ability of the professors, mission. It describes the universityas making "an im- which Newman simply calls personal influence, that portimt contribution" to it and being "in harmony" with essentially achieves the aim of the university. "It is the it.44 Whereas the earlierdrafts depicted a juridic bond place where the professor becomes eloquent, and isa to the local ordinary, the final document speaks only of

8 0 -70110171MIPTIR erTV 4tIl-ire-

"close personal and pastoral relationships...between intervention by ecclesiastical authority should respect university and church authorities."45 Universities, how- the statues and regulations of the institution as well as ever, established by the Holy See or by an episcopal accepted academic procedures,"5° which procedures conference or by a local ordinary are obligated to incor- have definite meanings in the American context of porate into their statues the eleven articles or norms of academic freedom. The pope's apostolic constitution the papal document. All other institutions are invited to mentions necessary institutional autonomy, "so long as internalize these norms as far as possible. the rights of the individual person and of the community My concern, in the main, is with the ideology of the are preserved within the confines of the truth and the document. It proceeds on a philosophical and pastoral common good." This same phrase delimits the defini- analysis of truth, not knowledge as Newman chose.It tion of academic freedom given in the footnote, and the speaks of the formation and transmittal of a Christian phrase is vague enoughlike its canon law cousin, sal- culture, but this task is continually to be clarified in vatis salvandisto mean almost anything. Some para- himine revelationis.46 The pope's extended analysis of graphs further, the pope says that although bishops do Christian culture allows the impression that if one sub- not enter directly into the internal governance of the stituted ecclesia for universitates, one was reading university, they "should be seen not as external agents Gaudium et Spes of Vatican Council IL Pope John Paul II but as participants" in the university's life.51 The refer- is not to be faulted for so construing the topic, for he is ence to the Land O'Lakes presidents seems evident; their a pastor and not a provost. But from such an orientation phrase is fully gone. certain assertions logically follow, as for example the Flow implementable is the pope's vision of a Catholic four essential characteristics of a university qua Catholic: university in an American context of academic freedom? inspinitioChristiana of individuals and institution; reflec- This question demands more extended treatment than tion in luoiine fidei; fidelitas to the Christian message as possible here, but I would note the cautions of the interpreted by the magisterium; diakonia to the people of American Canon Law Society regrading canons 807-814, god and to the human family.47 Within this context other which pertain to Catholic universities, given that the items do not so easily fit and are certainly not men- apostolic constitution on universities was written in tioned: the possibility of errors in the struggle for truth, light of those canons. The American canonical commen- that research may seem to clash with received doctrines, tators write: "The Catholic institutions in the United that a Catholic scholar might dissent from non-infallible States, in order to satisfy the nature and purpose of authoritative magisterium.48 In a certain respect the higher education, follow the distinctive American pat- document is a harmonious analysis of the expected har- tern. At the same time they remain completely free to mony between faith and reason, a fundamentally conduct instructional and research programs in the light Catholic principle to be sure and worthy of a university to of Catholic faith and with the interaction of all academic fathom. Yet a university must seek such harmonies disciplines. This pattern differs so greatly in style of through academic struggle and debate whereas a pastor academic governance and in cultural and social dimen- may assert it readily as a formal and final cause, again sions from the European system of higher education that to speak Thomastically. it is seriously questionable whether the canons are in- The arena of academic freedom presents the major deed applicable in the United States."52 There is un- potential difficulty for American Catholic colleges and doubtedly a tension in Catholic academic settings, universities in light of the pope's recent apostolic con- posed by canon law and the pope's constitution on the stitution. The history of a particular phrase illustrates one hand and on the other hand by the "secular canons" this point. A group of American Catholic university on academic freedom with which American Catholic presidents met in 1967 at Land O'Lakes, Wisconsin, in universities seek to comply for professional accredita preparation for a Vatican-spomored international meet- tion purposes. As with all legitimate tensions, it should ing the following year. Their "Land O'Lakes" document never become a matter of the hegemon, of one pole. It reads: "To perform its teaching and research functions rather becomes an ongoing and never-fully-worked-out effectively the Catholic university must have a true balancing of the legitimate interests of each pole, for autonomy ar d academic freedom in the face of authority there are values in each of them. But such balancing will of whatever kind, 11 or clerical, external to the academic involve struggle and momentary clash and prudential community itself."4 They further say that "Catholicism judgments by university president and local bishop is perceptibly present and effectively operative" in a alike. Catholic university. They recognized the tension by af- I conclude with Newman concerning the dynamics of firming both thoughts! struggle in situations of tension. It is well known that to An international meeting of Catholic administrators solve difficulties Newman tended to describe compet- (Rome, 1972) delineated the four essential characteristics ing forces, giving each force its full and just due. As of a Catholic university, which the pope's recent con- mentioned above, the Apologia's fifth chapter describes stitution reiterated, but they noted that "the legitimate and the ever recurring conflict between human inquiry (in necessary autonomy of the university requires that any religious matters) and the constraints of church

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authority, citing the need for both and, moreover, the genuine insight may initially lurk within a wider error. desirability for the conflict itself.53 Again, the church's The university, moreover, is a composite of inquiry and threefold offices (the devotional, the theological, and the received tradition, of freedom and structure, of profes- juridic) of their nature tend to clash, yet each is sustained sor and administrator. In Historical Sketches he focused in its integrity by the tendencies and claims of the other on the competing and at times clashing aims of univer- two offices. Newman describes the conflicts between sity and residential college, and his answer was not to these three church offices in the 1877 preface to his make an easy harmony of them but to describe their reedition of the Prophetical Office, a marvelous piece of counterbalancing contributions."A University em- subtle writing. Newman's 1859 essay "On Consulting bodies the principal of progress, and a College that of the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine" argues for the role stability; the one is the sail, and the other the ballast; each of the laity in witnessing to revelation, which role was is insufficient in itself for the pursuit, extension, and meant to complement other sources of revelation, e.g., inculcation of knowledge; each is useful to the other.. . episcopal magisterium; the essay outlines idle conflicts The University being the element of advance, will fail between laity and bishop during the fourth century. In in making good its ground as it goes; the College, from these three pieces of writing, Newman was describing a its Conservative tendencies, will be sure to go back, process of dialectics that I have examined elsewhere in because it does not go forward."55 Unlike contemporary greater detail.54 There was no other way for Newman to college catalogues, Newman does not give detailed depict the complex realities of the tension than in this answers to how the university achieves its aims. lie dialectical picture, and in the very dialectical process rather describes a dialectical process, assuming the itself was not the means to the solution but thevery benevolent will of the entire university community to solution itself. engage one another with civility of discourse "and in a Newman's dialectical penchant also operates in his neighbourly way."56 Were there nothing else of viability vision of the university. There is, as we have seen,a in Newman's university "idea," this last encouragement collision of knowledge with knowledge, in which is surely such for cm campus environments.

1. Autobiographical Writings (referenced AW), ed. Henry Tristam (New to A W are to the Uniform Edition. York: Sheed and Ward, 1957), 259. 10. HS, iii, 48, 2. Pope John Paul 11, Ex Corde Ecclesiae (Libreria Editrice Vaticana: Vatican City); William Bennett, To Reclaim A Legacy (NEH: November 11. Opposition to the Oxford reform was led by pamphleteers from 19M). Bennett's general thesis is continued by his successor at NEH, Edinburgh who argued for utilitarian studies. Cf. Idea, 153. Some Lynne V. Cheney, in 50 Hours: A Core Curriculum for College Students years later they also championed the ideals of the newly-founded (NEH: October 1989) and Tyrannical Machines: A Report on Educational University of London pace Oxford's esptiusal of liberal arts and theol- Practices Cone Wrong and Our Best Hopes for Setting Them Right (NEH: ogy. In the expurgated 5th discourse, Newman refers to the Litinlmr0 November 1990). Review of February, 1826. See Ian Ker's edition of Idol (Oxford, Claren- don Press, 1976), 420. 3. A W, 280.Also, see Tlw Letters mul Diaries of lohn Henry Naman (referenced 1.0), ed. Charles A. Dessain et al. (London and Oxford: 12. Idea, ix. Oxford University Press, 1961), 14:257, n.2. 13. See Idea, 113, 121, 125 (especially), 134, 151.

4. A W, 280-83. See LD 14:315 which masks the later hesitations. 14. Ibid., 461. 5. They were delivered on May 10, 17, 24, 31 and June 7, 1852, each 15. Bernard Lonergan, hisiAt: A Study of 1110/11/11 Understanding (New being published a week after delivery by a Dublin publisher. New- York: Harper and Row, 1978). In Lonergan's A Seond Collection, ed. man clearly intended an eventual "library edition"; cf. LD 15:83. W. Ryan and B. Tyrrell (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1974), he acknow- 6. These were actually published on Feb. 2, 1853, but backdated to the ledges Newman's influence. See 38, 263. dedication date of Nov. 21, 1852, and they were henceforth knownas 16. Such Thomistic distinctions can be useful in understanding the 1852 edition of Idea. Page references hereafter to Idea are to be the Newman's ideas, but Newman himself was not a Thonust in either his Uniform Edition unless noted otherwise. expressions or his conceptualizations.

7. Newman deleted the fifth discourse so as not to offend papal 17. Idea, xiii. sensibilities.In the papal brief of March 20, 1854 concerning the University, Pio Nono stated that Catholic doctrine was to be intrinsic 18. Ibid., xvi, to the lectures in all the subjects. Newman notes in AW, 323, that his discourses, and especially the fifth, were based "on a different idea." 19. Ibid., xviii, xx. 8. Along with AW and I.D, My Campeign in Ireland, papers of Newman 20. In his expurgated fifth discourse, Newman described how science posthumously and privately printed by the Birmingham Oratory in itself can be called a philosophy, providtxt "it is knowledge which has 1896, can be usefully consulted. undergone a process of intellectual digestion. it is the grasp of many things brought together in one." See Ker (ed.), Idol, 423. 9. Historical Sketches (referenced HS), iii, 2. Page references hereafter

10 1 2 21. For an analysis of first principles in Newman's thinking andforthe misuse of the humanities for ideological purposes. pertinent references, see Edward Jeremy Miller,foluiHenry Newman on 41. tiS, iii, Mc Idea of Church(Siwpherdstown, WV: Patmos Frew, 1987), 9-20, 42.Ex Corde Ecclesiae,(Libreria Editrice Vaticana), official English 22. Idea, 502; see also 134. translation, # 1. 23, Ibid., 495; see also the analogy with an infant on 33: 43. The "Proposed Schema" of 15 April 1985, NO 17, 19, asserts that a 24. SeeIdea,76 ff. Catholic university "takes on an ecciesial function." For background to the final document see Alice "On the Road: Toward a 25. Ibid., 229. Definition of a Catholic University,"The lutist48 (1988): 536-58.

26. Ibid., 474. 44.Ex Cord(' Ecclesnw, N49.

27. I IS, iii, 16. 45. # 28.

28.Idea,461. 46. Ibid., ## 3, 5, 13, 46, 49.

29. Ibid., 467. 47. Ibid., # 13. These characteristics reiterate. the documentThe Catholic University in the Modern Worldfrom the 2nd international congress of 30.Idea,476, reads: "Great minds need elbow-room, not indeed in the domain of faith, but of thought. And so indeed do lesser minds, and Catholic university delegates, Rome, November, 1972. all minds." Another text is in his "Letter to Pusey: "Life has the sanw 48. The literature on whether dissent from authoritative non-infallible right to decay, as it has to wax strong. This is specially the case with magisterium is possible, has become vast, due especially to the birth great ideas. You may stifle. them; or you may refuse them elbow-room; control issues surrounding lkipe Paul VI'sllninaniw Vitae.See also or again, you may torment them with your continual meddling; or you LtmwnGenthnnof Vatican II (N 25) and commentaries upon it. OD 26 may let them have free course and range, and be content, instead of June 1990 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Ei.ith issued the anticipating their excesses, to expose and restrain those excesses after "Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian" which they have occurred." Ct.Certain Diffkullies Felt by Anglicans in Catholicdecidedly limits the possibilities of dissent; see ## 25-31. TheReport of 7'mching,vol. 2, 79. the Catholic Theological Society of Amer: ,an Committee on the Profession of Faith and I,.Oath of Fidelity(1990) orgues for greater latitude in pos- 31. Idea, 217, 216. sibilities of dissent. 32. On the matter of university appointments to the Catholic Univer- Catholic Univeisity: A Modern sity Dublin, Newman was opposed to the hiring of non-Catlwlics. See 49. Printed in Neil McCluskey, The Appraisal(Notw Dame Press: 1970), 336-41. 1.0 16:203. 50. "The Catholic University in the Modern World," op. cit., # 58. 33. LD 24:46. When Archbishop Manning attempted his own Catholic university at Kensington in 1873, Newman refused the invitation to 51.Ex cOrde EedeSille, MO12, 28. cooperate, knowing the. venture would be overly controlled and lack- ing academic freedom. 52.The Code of Canon Law: A Text and Commentary,commissioned by the Canon Law Society of America, ed. James A. Coriden et al. (New 34.Idea,263. York: Paulist Press, 1985), 571. 35. Ibid., 501-02. 53. See the fine analysis by Ian T. Ker in hisMin I knry Newman: A Biography(New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 549 ff. 36. 118, hi, 6. 54. For an analysis of the dialectics in Newman's ecclesiology,see 37. Ibid., hi, 9. Edward Jeremy Miller, op. cit., chapter 4. For Newman's 1859 essay, 38. Ibid., iii, 16. see OnConsulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine,ed. John Coulson (London: Chapman, 1961). 39.Idea,333 and the, preceding pages. 55. 115, iii, 228-29. 40. Bennett, op. cit., 10-1 1.Admittedly, William !len nett' s report is also concerned with how the; humanities are taught but there is little 56. SeeIdea,465. description of the. process ala Newman;rather, it is an attack on the The Newman-Lonergan Connection: Implicafions for Doing Theology in NorthAmerica

Carla Mae Streeter, OP

It is an awesome moment in theological studyto come at Dublin that he had delivered the series that eventually upon the relationship between two intellectual giants. became the contents for The Idea ofa University. A month This paper will be Loncerned with sucha connection, after Simpson's accusation appeared, Newman began that between John Henry Newman,convert and car- work on a writing he called Discursive Enquirieson dinal, and Bernard J. F. Lonergan, cradle Catholicand Metaphysical Subjects. By September, 1859,as the ar- Canadian Jesuit. Newman died in 1890, and Lonergan chives of Birmingham reveal, he began workon a section almost a century later, in 1984. Both had similarcon- called "Formation of Mind." On January 15,1860, he cerns: to offer the world an option to the secular received the letter from his friend, William iloude,con- liberalism, relativism, and scientism that hadno place sidered by many to be the most immediatecause of the for religious mystery. writing of the Grammar. Froude wrote that hisgrowing The direction these two great minds tookto open up appreciation of the rigorous standards of scientific in- this option was to meet the oppositionon its own vestigation was moving him further and furtherinto ground, the forum of the mind. Both beginphenomeno- skepticism and agnosticism.2 The convictionwas grow- logically, seeking to chart themovement of the mind ing in Newman that the time was gmwing short for toward certainty. Both were committedmen of faith, producing a coherent defense of faith againstthe Catholics, who were determined to include intheir liberalist zeitgeist. Catholic intellectualswere under charting the reality and value of religious belieffor siege. modern day culture. Newman's article, "On Consulting the Faithful in This brief paper will begin with Newman, andspecifi- Matters of Doctrine," appeared in The Rambler in July, cally the foundation he lays in The Grammar ofAssent. 1959. It caused a stir, making his orthodoxysuspect in The paper will consider the origin of the Grammar,the the eyes of the hierarchy. He abandoned his Discursive purpose Newman had in writing it, and the point that Enquiries project as adding fuel to the fire of thegrowing he wants to make. We will then turn toa consideration tension, and began a simple collection of theologico- of Lonergan, and how he builds and expandson the philosophical reflections. He workedaway at response foundation Newman has laid. Finallywe will ask what after response to Froude's dilemma. By 1866 heformu- this might imply for those whoare doing theology in a lated a writing plan for the Grammar, andin 1870 he North American contexi di i he brink of thetwenty-first completed it. century. in a note added to the Grammar in 1880, Newmangives us the clear purpose of the work. He wrote to describe THE NEWMAN FOUNDATION the "Organum lnvestigandi," theprocess of investigation, keeping in mind religious and theological truthas The Grammar of Assentappears to have been written in part of the quest of the investigator. This argumentative response to a public accusation that Newman accepted work "in defense of my creed," is intendedto take on as true. Editor Richard Simpson, in the December. 1858, any who would accuse Newman of a blind piethim.3 issue of The Rambler, accuses Newman of writing "colos- The point Newman drives home in this finalwork is sal fragments" while never producing "rinished that the process of the mind isa circling and spiralling edifice." Newman had just returned fronthis term as movement, precisely what Newman himselfex- first rector of the Catholic University of Dublin.It was perienced in his own conversion, and whatwds happening as he had set out to gather his "colossal fragments" Sr. Carla Mae Streeter 1 an assistant professor ofistematic theology at into a "finished edifice," flw Aqumas Instithte of Tiwology hi St. Lows, MO. There are elements to this novumorganum investigandi.

12 1 4 There are assumptions and first principles, premises later, who will build on that foundation. which enter in, ethnico-personal dispositions, anda mode of arranging and considering the mattes for THE LONERGAN EDIFICE debate. The method to be followed was phenomenological. It Bernard J. Lonergan was born in Buckingham in the does not merely state former conclusions but iscon- province of Quebec, Canada, in 1904. He died at the cerned with the life and structure of our cognitional and Jesuit infirmary at Pickering, east of the city of Toronto, ethical nature as it unfolds in its own operations. New- in 1984, just a few weeks short of his eightieth birthday. man will search for this recurring pattern in his own Lonergan is often indiscriminately classified with consciousness and then ask his readers to verify for Transcendental Thomists. His own comment on this themselves the truth of the assertions he has made. This can be found in Method in Theology: self-appropriation completed, it remains but forone to apply this method theologically.4 In his book, The Transcendental Method (New The unique discovery of Newman in thisprocess is York: Herder and Herder, 1968), Otto Muck what he names the illative sense. It is the mind'spowe& works out a generalized notion of transcen- to judge or conclude in the concrete, not in the abstract.' dental method by determining the common Norris describes it in this way: features in the work of those that employ the method. While I have no objection to this According to logic, which is the formal exhibi- procedure, I do not consider it very pertinent tion of all demonstrative science, the only cer- to an understanding of my own intentions. I tain conclusions are deductions from conceive method concretely. I conceive it, not self-evident principles: theories, hypotheses in terms of principles and rules, but as a nor- and opinions may have any degree of prob- mative pattern of operations with cumultative ability, but they can never be certainties, for and progressive results. I distinguish the absolute verification is not possible. For New- methods appropriate to particular fields and, man, however, the illative sense is just such an on the other hand, their common core and absolute verification, because it is able to es- ground, which I name transcendental method. tablish the focal point of an otherwise incon- lere, the word, transcendental, is employed clusive evidence, meeting a question in the in a sense analogous to Scholastic usage, for it spirit, though not in the letter, of rationality. It is opposed to the categorical (or predicamen- concludes a process, too complex foreasy and tal). But my actual procedure also is transcen- complete articulation, too elusive and minute dental in the Kantian sense, inasmuch as it for adequate analysis, and too rich in its data brings to light the conditions of the possibility for restricted methods.6 of knowing an objpct in so far as the Newman created his own terms to explain what he knowledge is a priori.1' means. "ormal inference for the liberal thinker is the An air of mystery, almost a mystique, surrounds Ber- only way to certainty. For Newman, inference is the nard Lonergan. Serious readers who begina tentative conditional acceptance of a proposition. Assent, incon- exploration into Lonergan's thought by reading the first trast, is the unconditional acceptance of a proposition: five chapters of Insight often go no i'urther. While it is "..the object of Assent is a truth, the object of Inference true that Lonergan is about a distinct project and cannot is truth-like...."7 For Newman,acts of inference are easily be categorized with a specific type of Thomist both the antecedents of assent before assenting, and its approach, he can be quite accessible to students who usual concomitants after assenting.8 have some acquaintance with Newman's thought. In Assent does not have the reasoning characteri os- Lonergan's own words, it serves us well to begin to sessed by inference, but the two are compatible. Simple gather an idea of the connection. assent is an unconscious act of unconditional acceptance, while complex or reflex assent for Newman is a ..philosophic reflection has to sort out the conscious and deliberate act of unconditional accep- two manners (of knowing), to overcome tance. Certitude as a mental state is a complex assont to regressive tendencies to childish feelings and a notional or imaginative proposition.9 The key to what ways, and to achieve the analytic task of dis- Newman is trying to clarify in the Grammar is the careful entangling the many components in human distinction between assent and inference.10 knowing and the different strands in its objec- Although distinct in his approach, Newman is in har- tivity. A list of the different ways one can go mony with the intellectual emphasis of Aquinas. The wrong will provide, I believe, a thumbnail mind is not a pawn, but a source of its own results. It is sketch of most of the main philosophicalsys- Newman's genius to have begun to it operations. tems. ..there is the question whether my It will be the task of another genius, almosta century prior allegiance to Thomism did not predeter- mine the results I reached. Now it is true that 4 f. 13 / ;) Th- w7rT-747

I spent a great deal of time in the study of St. tantly, Lonergan wrestled with existentialism, and with Thomas and that I know I owe a great deAl to an international community of students. These two ele- him. I tust add, however, that my interest in ments served to bring an exposure that would otherwise

Aquinas came late.As a student in. . . be missing from Method in Theology which appeared in philosophy . ..in the twenties I. . .went book form in 1970 after numerous lectures on its con- through the main parts of Newman'sGrammar tents. of Assent six times.... Only later in that decade, One who reads Insight without knowing that Method when studying theology, did 1 discover the is its completion does not know the complete Lonergan, point to the real distinction (in knowing) by for his purpose, like Newman's, is apologetic. That pur- conclucling the unicum esse from the Incarna- pose is to meet those who would dispense with faith and tion and by relating Aquinas' notion of esw to religious love on their own terms: the operations of the Augustine's of veritas.Finally, it was in the mind as it seeks truth. forties that I began to study Aquinas on cog- As with Newman, the beginning is phenomenologi- nitional theory, and as soon as the Verbum cal. The attention is to what we do by nature to know. articles were completed (Theological Studies, The sciences, both natural and human, know what it 1946-1949), I began to write Insight. means to begin with data. Lonergan will challenge them to widen their horizon on this data, including not only This sketch of his own intellectual development is the data of sense, but the data of consciousness. The found in A Second Collection12 and is followed by other data of consciousness need to be observed; they need to .eferences to his own development in relation to that be objectified, charted. The results will be a cognitional mriy acquaintance with Newman: theory based on objectifying the operations of the intel- Newman's remark that ten thousand difficul- ligence as it moves toward judgment, toward knowing. ties do not make a doubt has served me in As this process is noted, its pattern is reaffirmed again good stead. It encouraged me to look difficul- and again. An epistemology becomes possible, for the ties squarely in the eye, while not letting them first time bawd on empirical data, the data of conscious- interfere with my vocation or my faith. His ness. It becomes possible to ask why this is knowing, and illative sense later became my reflective act of nothing else is, It will be these data, these data of con- understanding,13 sciousness of the human operator, that become the locus for the inbreaking of grace and the theological life of faith, Chapters nine, ten, and eleven (of Insight) have hope, and charity that give evidence of its presence. to do with judgment. Chapter nine endeavors Newman had envisioned an "Organon Investigan- to say what .we mean by judgment. Chapter ten investigates the immediate ground of di."16 He had laid its foundations. But he also realized that he had but begun this momentous project. judgment and finds it in a grasp of the virtually unconditioned, a view that was preceded in You have truly said that we need a Novum my thinking by some acquaintance with Organum for theologyand I shall be truly Newman's illative sense." glad if I shall be found to have made any suggestions which will aid the formation of One can gain a helpful grasp of the "edifice" Lonergan bui'ls in Insight with an initial reading of "Insight such a calculusbut it must be the strong conception and the one work of a great genius, Revisited" in A Second Collection.15 Such a reading gives not the obiter attempt of a person like myself, one the sense that what Newman began has been carried who has already attempted many things, and to an intricate analysis. is at the end of his days. (John Henry New- It was Lonergan's intent to write insight as the first of a two volume project. The second volume was to be man, 16 March 1870, The Letters and Diaries of John Hemy Newman, vol. 25 (Oxford: Claren- Method in Theology, rounding out the study to include the don Press, 1973), 56-57.1 role of religion and faith in a :horough understanding of what knowing is. The edifice that Lonergan builds on Newman's The density of Insight required Lonergan to wait four remarkable foundation is an empirical account of years until a publisher was found for his manuscript in Aquinas' intelligence in act. Beginning with the phan- 1957. Insight had been finished in 1953. With its comple- tasm that arises out of the data of sense or consciousness, tion Lonergan was assigned to the Gregorianum in Lonergan traces the dynamism of the human intel- Rome to teach, and a ten-year hold was put on the ligence. The dynamism manifests itself in distinct ques- completion of the second volume. The wait was tioning. Questions for inquiry lead to insight or the providential. During his Roman period Lonergan pivotal linking of elements of imagery. The linking wrestled with the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incar- enables a concept to form. Questions for reflection move nation, producing significant Latin works that now in the mind into a judgment of the truth of the insight, an translation are only beginning to be known. Most impor- expansion of Newman's illative sense. Questions of

14 I t; value move the human agent into a judgment of value clarity on that which seeks the answers, our own intel- which triggers choice. ligences, and the definite place both reason and faith It is helpful here to recall that Lonergan's thesis dealt have in the quest. Without sound cognitional theory, the with operative and cooperative grace in Thomas direction pointed by such consciousness philosophers as Aquinas. In terms of cognition this theological focus Gadamer, Polanyi, and Voeglin becomes only a vision becomes the backdrop for Lonergan's use of the expres- with no means of attainment except desire. Newman sion "vector." The upward vector becomes the mind and Lonergan are convinced that that desire is destined moving in its step-by-step pattern from the simple ex- to be realized and have charted the means. periential awareness of data through insight, concep- As we move toward the turn of the century, we carry tualintion, to judgment, ; nd finally choice. The downward with us a development in the natural and human scien- vector, the dynamic of being grasped by religious love, ces that has never been so developed in our human which manifests itself first in a judgment of value,a history. There is at the same time an unprecedented commitment, and then proceeds to seek the under- Ininger for the ultimate reality toward which each of the standing of what one knows in faith. This downward sciences with its specific content focus converges. This movement or healing vector is a functional explanation provides a climate for the dialogue of theology with the of what we have known as sanctifying grace. The heal- natural and human sciences unlike any so far in our ing is for the creative movement of the mind freed for its history. The question becomes, where will theology intended patter of operation. enter the dialogue? Will it be able to speak the empirical Much remains to be done on an exploration of how language of the sciences and, recognizing that starting Newman's stress on the imagination is critical in the place, lead the partners to a sound explanation of the whole process of understanding. Lonergan deals with it divine working within the material world? What is the only in a beginning way in chapter XVII of Insight." significance of sound cognitional theory in the doing of The implications for the human agent as a believer sound theology? Perhaps for the first time we have an need to be drawn out. If Lonergan's analysis is correct, empirical anthropological base for theology to open up then we have for the first time the grounding of thegrace the ultimate concerns of the sciences. This could meana dynamic in human consciousness, and in human know- functional reclaiming of theology as completion of the ing. We have the beginnings of an explanation, not sciences. merely a description, of the dynamic of graceas it func- There are the challenges that lie before us as philosophers, tions in total respect of the human intelligence, yet and as theologians. We have need of Aquinas in a new providing it a certainty it experiences but does notun- key. We have need to stand on the shoulders of a New- derstand. man, and we have need to begin the intellectual sweat- work that Lonergan suggests will be our only solution IMPLICATIONS FOR TWENTY-FIRST to the problem of the total decline of culture. His solution CENTURY THEOLOGY IN NORTH is one that builds on Newman's concern. We have need, AMERICA in Lonergan's words, of "a divinely sponsored collaborative solution" that provides us for the first time Newman's concern, the undermining of faith bya with explanatory categories in consciousness for the growing secular world view, has become a lived reality dynamism of faith, hope and religious love as thex for our generation. Relativism, and the abandonment of enable the human to function in the renewal of culture.' the search for Truth among many partial truths, is ram- This is the task of the novum organum investigandi for the pant on our university campuses. Young people have twenty-first century. little or no light to find their way out of the maze. Little, What lies ahead is the building of a world community. that is, unless someone opens to them the marvelous This community will need a new economic world order. operations of their own minds. For this indeed is the Theology has need of new categories to deal with the orgamm, and knowing its pattern opens to one the novum activity of God in religious traditions unknown to most organum investigandi that Newman had the vision to theologians. Culture, regarded for the first time in his- foresee would be needed. tory in its rich empirical diversity, will move into rud- One only need pick up a best seller such as Alan derless decline without the guiding hand of sensitive Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind to explore the intelligence. impact of this rudderless intellectualism in the In the truest sense, the intellectual vision of John American context. It manifests itself in ethical areas, in Henry Newman is a summons to the human com- power economics and authority questions, and in much munity. We have within us the means for our own vacuous theology. progress. It is both sobering and electrifying to realize The contribution of these two giants provides a light that the divine is once again waiting upon a "Let it be in this intellectual darkness. This is not because they done...." provide answers, but because they have givenus a

15 7 1. Thomas J. Norris, Newman and His Thettlogical Method: A Guide for 10 Norris, 29. the Theologian Today (Leider, Netherlands: E.J. Drill, 1977), 23. 11. Bernard Lonergan, SJ, Method in Theology (London:Dation, 2. Ibid., 24. Longman & Todd, 1971), 13-14. 3. John Henry Newman, An Essiy in Aid of A Gramniar of Assent, ed. 12. Bernard Lonergan,SJ, A Second Collection, eds. W.F.J. Ryan, SJ, and Nicholas Lash (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979) IH. Tyrell, SJ (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1974), 38, 382 ff. 13. Ibid., 263. 4. Norris, 27-28. 14. ibid., 273. 5. Newman, 271, 276. 15. Ibid., 263-278. 6. Norris, 42-43, 16. David M. Hammond, "Imagination and Ilermeneutical Theology: 7, Newman, 209. Newman's Contribution to Theologica I Method," The Dounishk Review 8. George W. Rutler, "Newman on Assent to Religious Belief," Christ 106 (1988): 23. and Reason: An Introduction to Ideas from Kant to Tyrrell (Front Royal, 17. Bernard Lonergan, Si, insight: A Study of Human Undershindings Virginia: Christendom Press, 1990), 59-92. (New York: limper Row, 1978), 530-594. 9. Ibid., 81. 18. Ibid., 729.

16 Newman and "The Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian"

Gerard Magill

Catholic Christendom...presents a continuous picture of Authority and Private Judgment alternately advancing and retreating as the ebb and flow of the tide (Apologia, 226).1

The recent "Instruction on the Ecclesia I Vocation of thebe elicited in matters of faith and morals. He argued that Theologian" from the Vatican raises the question of the we can reach certainty even when the particular con- relation between conscience, theology, and ecclesial clusion cannot be demonstrated strictly by the available authority; in that &raiment the "sense of faith" that evidence or proven by logical reasoning. To warrant characterizes a vibrant church is not only closely as- asz:ent he appealed to personal reasoning. This mode of sociated with the "Magisterium of the Church's Pastors" reasoning functions through a congruence of argu- but also distanced from what is called "a supreme ments, interpreted as a whole and assimilated by the magisterium of conscience.' A century after the death individual, to justify the conclusion. This occurs, for of John Henry Newman (1801-1890) the Ciiholic Church example, when spouses examine their reasons for mar- continues to struggle witt: a question that was central to riage: there comes a point when the various arguments his own writings, and especially significant for his (none of which may he persuasive in itself) converge, hfelong concern with education. It was precisely to being interpreted by the partners in a holistic way that theology (to the ecclesial vocation of the theologian) that justifies the decision to marry. Newman referred to this Newman turned to maintain conscience and authority mode of personal reamming as "informal inference,"4 and it in constructive tension. I le was especially fearful of the was as important for his view of theology as it was for tyrannical oppression of one over the other in his own his theory of assent. day: the glorification of private judgment (conscience) In 1870 the clearest explanation of his argument was in the rationalism of religious liberalism, and the tyran- presented in the Grammar of Assent, defining assent as a ny of triumphant power (authority) in the blind "perception of the legitimate conclusion in and through obedience of ultramontanism. the premisses" (Grammar, 301-302). To describe the Newman maintained his balance between these two process of reasoning that legitimates assent he used a extremes by articulating an epistemology that not only metaphor from education, "the living mind" (Grammar, justified religious assent through personal conscience 360), or "living personal reasoning" (Grammar, 300). but also warranted dissent from legitimate ecclesial This 1870 metaphor of "the living mind" is reminiscent authority. In this essay Iwill argue that Newman's of his key metaphor for sound education in his sixth educational strategy bridged the chasm between assent discourse on university education (1852), the "enlarge- and dissent by creating three interlocking spans, con- ment of mind" (Idea, 125).5 This parallel reveals an im- science, theology, and authority, with theology holding portant affinity between his philosophy of education in the key place to ensure healthy tension between the the Idea of a University and his epistemology in the Gram- interacting claims. I begin my analysis by briefly ex- mar. amining his theory of assent. Two significant features of assent result from this metaphor of the living mind (informal inference). As- ASSENT sent entails "an active recognition of propositions as true" (Grammar, 344-345): this mode of reasoning entails Newman explained that "(a)ssent is... unconditional" reaching forward to insights in a personal fashion by (Grammar,259),3an absolute affirmation of truth that can affirming truth (assent) that may not be perceived by others. Again, this recalls his earlier educational metaphor that "educates the intellect to reason well in Dr. Magill is an assistant proftswr in the Department at TIwologiial Studies at Saint Louis University. all matters, to reach out towards truth, and to grasp it"

17 1 0 (Idea,126). In addition, the possibility of personal error regarded as "a sort of instinct, aphronemadeep in the is obviated when assent illumines other knowledge; bosom of the mystical body of Christ" (Cons, 73), and he "when the conclusion is assumed as a hypothesis, it described this as the "conscience of the Church.° He throws light upon a multitude of collateral facts, ac- was referring to the historical judgments of conscience counting for them, and uniting them together in one made by the believing community as a whole, the term whole"(Grammar,323). Again, this recalls his education- phronemaexpressing the communal character of per- al metaphor for which "enlargement or illumination" sonal reasoning. He later referred to the individual form (Idea,126) requires "a comparison of ideas one with of this type of personal reasoning when recalling another,...and a systematizing of them" (Idea, 134). For Aristotle's practical moral rmsoning(phronesis) toil- Newman, verification entails interpretation in the sense lustrate informal inference: "it is .with the controlling that assent illumines other knowledge. principle in inferences that I am comparingphrottesis" In sum, Newman's assent is neither a logical con- (Grammar, 356). clusion nor a whimsical guess, but has these basic fea- Unlike Aristotle, Newman used practical reasoning tures.First, it is the personal reasoning of informal (inform.,! inference) to justify assent. Only two months inference (recalling his educational metaphor, "the after publishing theGrammar,Newman explained that living mind") that justifies assent.Second, assent he did not use practical "in opposition to speculative" transcends particular arguments as an active recogni- but "to assert that probable arguments may lead to a tion of truth.Third, assent entails interpretation, conclusion which is not only safe to act upon, but is to beforehand in the congruence of inferences, and after- be embraced as true"(Letters, xxv:114).8This is a crucial wards in the increasing unity that is brought to bear distinction for understanding the meaning of dissent in upon other knowledge. Using this theory of informal the church today. The recent "Instru-tion on the Ec- inference to warrant assent, Newman traversed the ap- clesial Vocation of the Theologian" from the Vatican parent chasm between religious assent and legitimate claims that the obligation to follow conscience cannot dissent by metaphorically building a bridge with three legitimate dissent because conscience illumines only the interlocking spans, conscience, theology, and authority, practical judgement.4 In contrast, Newman applied his each of which is now examined. theory of assent to conscience, and prescribed consulting the conscience of the faithful, precisely to ascertain CONSCIENCE truth for doctrinal pronouncements.1-ionce,his use of phronemato describe the conscience of the church an- liecause Newman understood conscience as a religious ticipated his later theory of assent. but nonethekss reasonable judgment, he was able to draw Newman's view of conscience included not only an an important parallel between assent and conscience: epistemological dimension, N;t also a theological dimension. He argued that consultation should precede a mind thus carefully formed upon the basis of doctrinal definition, because the assents of the faithful its natural conscience,... has a living hold on as judgments of conscience are a theological source of truths...is able to pronounce by anticipation, truth: "thefidelium sensusand consensus is a branch of what it takes a long argument to prove...inter- evidence which it is natural or necessaryfoi prets what it sees around it the Church (Gnminuir,117). to regard and consult, before she proceeds to any defini- Here, the three crucial features of assent are applied tion"(Cons,55, Newman's emphases). In sum, the strik- to conscience. First, the "living hold on truths" recalls ing parallel between the three features of assent and his educationa I metaphor for eliciting assent, "the living conscience indicate that Newman applied his theory of mind." Second, discerning truth "by anticipation" assent to conscience. And these judgments of conscier,ce points to the activc recognition of propositions as true bear a theological dimension thai was central to his that is required for assent. Third, the mind that "inter- argument for consulting the faithful. prets what it sees around it" encapsulates the interpretative process of assent. This threefold parallel indicates THEOLOGY that he applied his theory of assent to conscience. Such a connection can be traced as early as 1831 to one of his Recently, Avery Dulles has claimed that theology sermons for the University of Oxford, preached at St. played only a modest role in Newman's a:tide "On Mary's. There he explained that "an educated con- Consulting the Faithful."Iu But he (ails to appreciate the science,.. seems to detect moral truth" by reasoning importance of theology for Newman's argument on the process that he later associated with informal inference." consent of the faithful(asthe conscience of the church). Newman also attributed a communal character to the The need for theology appears clearly in Newman's judgments of conscience. In 1859 he published in the letter (June 1867) to Canon Walker, a professor at St. Ramblerhis article, "On Consulting the Faithful in Mat- Edmund's College, Ware, in which he discussed the ters of Doctrine," in which he argued that the "Consent issue of theological condemnation in theSyllabus of Er- of the faithful" was a "consensus" that should be rors(1864):

18 For myself I think the secures judicat orbis equal in some antagonist activity, and its judge in the terrarum, is the real rule and interpretation of tribunal of truth....It is a seat of wisdom, a light of the the words of the Church, i.e., the sensus world, a minister of the faith" (HS, 111:16). Theology, in theologorunt primarily, then consensus the siervice of faith, was at home in tlw university be- fidelium next (Letkrs, cause it adopted the same method of reasoning (informal inference) as was celebrated by Newman in his Here Newman used an Augustinian phrase, which he philosophy of education: "the process of enlightenment translated as "the Christian commonwealth judges or enlargenwnt of mind" (Idea, 130) in the university without misgiving" (Letters, xxiv:354), to express con- functioned primarily by "reducing to order and mean- fidence in the historical judgements of the believing ing" (Idea, 134), an early articulation of tlw later argu- community for formulating doctrine. This is what the ment of convergence in his history of assent. recent Vatican instruction means by the "sense of faith" Newman's defense of freedom in theology was counter- that belongs to 11w whole people of God and yields "a universal consent in matters of faith and morals."" cultural in an increasingly ultramontanist church. In an appendix to tlw Apologia, he wrote: "(t)he freedom of However, Newman articulated how the sense of faith Schools, indeed, is one of those rights of reason,. ..this functions, by implementing his theory of assent in con- implies not to moral questions only, but to dogmatic science as a theological undertaking: also" (Apologia, 447). Such an appraisal of theologl.cal (On a mind thus carefully formed upon the freedom as a right of reason was echoed a century later basis of its natural conscience, the theology in the Second Vatican Council's appeal to reivion to of a religious imagination...has a living hold justify the right of religious freedom.'" Wishing to emu- on truths is able to pronounce by anticipa- late the great medieval schools of theology, Newman

tion,. .it interprets what is sees (Grammar, argued that freedom was the sister of courage: "(i)t is 117). manifest how a mode of proceeding, such as this, tends not only to the liberty, but to the courage, of the in- The "living hold of truth" in assent that is achieved by dividual theologian or controversialist" (Apologia, 2.)). theok)gy (Newman refers to thkAogical "imagination" To summarize, Newman argued that the interpreta- as synonymous with his educational metaphor "the tive function of theology (using informal inference to living mind") implies that the collective judgment of perceive truth) could flourish in the university only theologians operates just like the collective conscience when freedom of inquiry was protected.Inquiry in of the community, that is, by using the personal reason. theology and the inquiry of conscieece are closely con- Walter Jost has amply shown that theology provides the nected because each uses the same mode of reasoning to richest store of Newman's discussion of nwthod;12 and justify assent. To appreciate how Newman was able to I am arguing that Newman's theological method adopted connect theologically assent with dissent, I now examine the same use of reason (informal inference) as did assent how conscience and theology relate to the third span of and conscience. Because his theory of assent, which he this bridge, the authority of the church, implemented in his view of conscience, is at the heart of his epistemology, it is no surprise that the same method of reasoning in theology provided theology with central AUTHORITY place in his 1877 preface to the Via Media: "Theology is the fundamental and regulating principle of the whole At the end of the Apohwia Newman balanced theologi- Church system" (Via Media, xlvii).13 cal freedom as one of the rights of reason with the right The context of this remark dealt with the three offices of ecclesial authority to intervene in theological con- of the church, priestly, prophetic, and regal (referring to troversy. Occasions may arise, he explained, when a the domain of worship, teaching, and governance). theologian is "just one of those persons whom the com- Newman gave priority to theology because of its inter- petent authority ought to silence; and, though the case pretative method (discerning truth through informal may not fall within the subject-matter in which that inference). Hence, truth, not obedience, guides theology: authority is infallible, it is clearly the duty of authority "(t)ruth is the guiding principle of theology and to act vigorously in the case" (Apologia, 232).17 Unfor- theological inquiries" (Via Media, xli).14 The upshot of tunately, Newman did not offer any criteriology for his connection between assent, conscience, and thwlogy implementing such discipline. But by extending was that the consent of the faithful, as the communal authority to non-infallible teaching, he clarified the ter- assent and conscience of the church, was perceived as a rain for discussing theological dissent. Then, as now, the theological process. And to safeguard the integrity of possibility of dissent is discussed in relation to theological interpretation he promoted theology (as authoritative, but non-infallible, church teachings. religious teaching) in the university, defending its The Second Vatican Council explained that beyond freedom of inquiry.° the "ex cathedra" infallibility of the pope in matters of The university, he argued, was the place "in which the faith and mon-ility, the ordinary magisterium of bishops intellect may safely range and speculate, sure to find, its has authentic teaching authority, whose force can be

19 21 discerned by three criteria: the character of the docu- Yet Newman was also politically astute. In his arguments, the frequency of proposing the doctrine, and the ment for consulting the faithful he had no interest in manner in which the doctrine isformulated.I8 There is fomenting disquiet among the laity. Quite the contrary a "hierarchy of truths" that vary in relation to the foun- was the case because he adopted a submissive attitude dation of faith in Catholic teaching.I9 Hence, the debate towards episcopal oppression. He confided to Emily on dissent today focuses not upon the freedom of con- Bowles in May, 1963, referring to the Vatican's inquiry science but on the authority of the ordinary magisterium of his work: "(a)s what was said to me was very indirect in genera1,21) and of the Congregation for the Doc trine of and required no answer, I kept silence and the whole the Faith in particular.21 matter was hushed up" (Letters, xx:447). But his submis- Newman justified bishops' intervening in theological siveness did not betoken intellectual diffidence. Rather, controversy on account of their apostolic office, Even as it was a theological strategy for an intractable situation. an Anglican in 1830 he defended his principle when In July, 1861, he wrote to Sir John Acton, a former writing to another Anglican vicar Simeon Lloyd Pope: associate with the Rambler, explaining that he was fear- "a system of Church government was actuallyestablislwd ful of "the loss of onion among ourselves, and the injury by the Apostles, and is thus the legit hnate enforcement of great interests" (Letters, xx:5). lie wanted to maintain of Christian truth" (Letters ii:265, Newman's emphases). church union and to minimize harm.24 But just as theological freedom has limits, episcopal Obedience and patience were the instruments of authority also must be restrained. That is why in his Newman's theological tactics. Writing in January, 1863, argument for consulting the faithful, theology and to William Monsell, a convert and friend in the Irish authority work together: "each constituent portion of government who was fearful of the ecclesiastical restric- the Church has its proper functions, and no portion can tion of religious freedom, Newman described his ap- safely be neglected" (Cons, 103). The crux of the matter, proach for handling Propoganda's suspicion of then as now, is whether theology is independent of, theological inquiry: though cooperative with, the hierarchy; or is thology All this will be overruled; it may lead to much delegated by, and derivative from, the bishops?"2 The temporary mischief but it will be overruled. recent Vatican instruction on the vocation of tlw And we do not make things better by dis- theologian has also accepted a reciprocity between obedience. We may be able indeed to compli- theology and the magisterium, recognizing that each cate matters, and to delay the necessary must enrich the other, and accepting that the reforms; but our part is obedience. If we are magisterium;s au thorkty is only intelligible in relation to the truth of doctrine.'" Newman's vision for theology but patient, all will come right (Letters, xx:391). centered upon the interpretative pursuit of truth would Patience was iwcessary because theological change be at home here. occurs slowly over a long period of time, for Newman a lowever, Newman was also appalled at the tyranny basic principle of doctrinal development. Rather than against theology by Catholic authorities in his own day. construing his submissiveness to authority merely as lie recognized the right of church authority to intervene personal compromise, there is sufficient textual evidence in tlwological disputes, but he berated the abuse of this to recognize a strategy for putting political expedience power.In his Dublin university leaures in 1854, he at the service of theological truth. Newman's prudential warned his audience of a "wrong Conservatism" among approach illustrated an underlying principle: "the prin- clerics, due to "an over-attachment to the ecclesiastical ciple of Economy is this; that out of various courses,... establishment" (H.S., iii:132). He was especially sensitive that ought tube taken which is most expedient and most to the suspicion of his article "On Consulting the Faith- suitable at the time for the object in hand" (Apologia, ful" in 1859 that incurred a Vatican inquiry after lw was 441).15 reported to Rome by Bishop Brown of Newport. Follow- In short, by obedience Newman attempted to avoid ing that inquiry, Newman began to detect an expanding provoking ecclesial authority in order to maintain the we', of conservatism and suspicion that stifled theologi- principle of unity among believers. And by patience he cal freedom. And in August, 1868, writing to Henry attempted to minimize harm in the community in order Wilberforce, one of his oldest friends since Oriel, his to support the principle of charity. Both theological discouragenwnt was obvious: freedom and episcopal authority were legitimate and necessary, but each should restrain the other. Ian Ker, in every word I publish will be malevolently his biography of Newman, discusses the interdepen- :;crutinized, and every expression which can dence of theologian and ecclesial authority, insightfully possibly he perverted sent straight to Rome,. . arguing that for Newinan truth isattained through the I shall be fighting under the lash, which does not conflict of opposites.'" I have attempted to trace the tend to produce vigorous efforts in tlw battle systeniatic foundation underlying this insight by relat- or to inspire either courage or presence of ing theology first to conscience and then to authority in mind (Letters, xxiv:120, Newman's emphasis). Newman's thought. It is this threefold interaction be-

20 a Iv

tween conscience, theology, and authority, like three cal controversy. Speaking out is not always wise, he interlocking spans on a bridge, that provides themeans explained, because "(v)eracity, like other virtues, lies in for connecting assent and dissent in his thought. a mean (Via Media, lix). Here is another illustration of his principle of economy or reserve. Language cannot ade- DISSENT quately express truth, and so it is legitimate to withhold truth or to set it out to advantage, for example, by being To appreciate Newman's complete viewon the ecclesial submissive through obedience. Robert Selby hasper- vocation of the theologian it isnecessary to trace the mo- suasively shown that Newman personalized this prin- ments not only of private dissent but also of public dissent ciple of reserve in his life, tending towards in his own life. First, private dissentwas quite explicit in moderation.29 But his sketch ofNewmao's character is his response as an Anglican to his bishops after publishing incomplete without adverting to his theologicalcourage, a Tract 90 in February, 1841, in which he critically examined virtue that Newman openly extolled, andone that led to whether the doctrine of the ancient churchwas contained the public dissent of leaving the Anglican Church in in the Thirty-Nine Articles? 1845, and to the less dramatic controversies pertaining I yielded to the Bishops in outward act, viz. in to private dissent within the church, first, Tract 90 in not defending the Tract,. .. notonly did I not 1841, and then, "On Consulting the Faithful" in 1859. assent inwardly to any condemnation of it, but Hence, for Newman the role for obedience in the ecclesial vocation of the theologian had unambiguous I opposed myself to the proposition ofa condemnation on the party of authority (Apologia, limits. In his "Letter to the Duke of Norfolk" (1874), he 416). defended "the supremacy of Conscience" by excluding the possibility of giving "an absolute obedience"to the His private dissent was clearly directed against the pope (Diff, ii:243).Newman's implementation of his opposition of the Anglican bishops to his tract. Thistype theory of assent in his understanding of conscience of dissent ii common in the Catholic Church today.For enabled him to have utmost confidence in the example, artificial contraception is condemned by the supremacy of conscience as the primary mental instru- bishops because of an inseparable bond betweensexual ment for discerning religious truth. Obedience, then, union and procreation in marriage.25 But contraception must first answer to conscience.30 is used frequently by Catholicspouses, often justified in their consciences by a convvrgence ofmany arguments, CONCLUSION akin to Newman's mode of informal inference. Thatis why, for example, Newman's argument for consulting Newman's defense of the supremacy of conscience the faithful is such an important theological insight:not did not idolize "a supreme magisterium of conscience." only to interpret theologically the assents of the faithful This phrase is used in the recent Vatican "Instructionon as the conscience of the church, but to formulate a subtle the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian"to repudiate theology of doctrinal development. Newman'sown ex- an extreme stance, one that Newman had refuted as perience of private dissent, then,can be a spur to epis- religious liberalism. But Newman also opposed another copal authority today to continue dialogue with the extreme position, the ultra montanist preference for un- faithful and theologians alike. critical obedience to ecclesiastical authority. For New- Private dissent, however,was not the only type of man, the ecclesial vocation of the theologian must strike dissent to which Newman acceded. Legitimate public a balance between these two extremes. To resist such dissent can also be traced in his life. Ofcourse Newman polarization, he established an interaction betweencon- rejected any dissent from infallible teaching. Hence,in science, theology, and authority to maintaina healthy his preface to the third edition of the Via Media in 1877 tension between the conscience of the community (the he explained: "the Catholic Church isever more precise "sense of faith") and the authority of the bishops (the in her enunciation of doctrine, and allowsno liberty of "Magisterium of the Church's Pastors"). dissent from her decisions, (foron such objective matters When the Vatican instruction discussed the indis- she speaks with the authority of infallibility)"(Via Media, soluble bond between the "sense of the faith" andthe lxxv). Nonetheless, in the same preface he conceded that "Magisterium of the Church's Pastors," unfortunately, public dissent from non-infallible teachingwas possible: a straw figure is set up when it is asserted that "the it is the worst charity,... not tospeak out, not opinions of the faithful cannot be purely and simply to suffer to be spoken out, all that there is to identified with the sensus fidei."31 The contribution that say. Such speaking out is..the triumph of Newman can make to understanding the "sense of faith" is to elucidate the basic issue at stake: that is, not opinion roligion,...but it is not always so (Via Media, lvi-lvii). but rather the judgement of assent. Froman epistemological perspective, Newman presenteda personal The context of this citation is suggestive of his preference mode of reasoning (informal inference)as a sound way for obedience to authority when embroiled intheologi- for discerning truth; therefore, the "sense of faith"arises

21 from t'ac conscience of the church, from judgments more particular way, he relied upon personal reason rather than from opinions, from warranted assents. (represented by his education metaphor "the living From a theological perspective, these assents arise as mind") in theology to retain a healthy tension first be- interpretations of the entire community of believers, and tween conscience and authority, and thereby between therefore both the authority of conscience (the "sense of assent and dissent. Theology, then, can be described as faith") and the bishops' authority (the "Magisterium of the central span of his bridge, holding in tension the the Church's Pastors") must be respected. other spans of conscience and authority, and together Newman's achievement, then, is to provide the providing the link between assent and dissent. How- theological means for maintaining an indissoluble bond ever, if we accompany Newman on his mental journey between the faithful and the bishops. His larger strategy we must be cautious, Bridges are notorious places for mentally was to build a bridge with three interlocking suicide. To discover the ecclesial vocation of the theologian spans (conscience, theology, authority) that enabled him in our Catholic colleges and universities, Newman ad- to traverse the chasm between assent and dissent. In a vises us to beware of speedy but deluding solutions.

I. John tienryNewman, Apologia Pro Vita Sim (MO. Edited,introduc- 11. "Instruction" no. 4. referring to the "Dogmatic Constitution on the tion, and notes by M.). Svaglic (Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1967). Church," no. 12, in Austin Flannery, OP, ed.,ValkanII (Wilmington: iereinafter referred to as Apologia. Scholarly Resources, Inc., 1975), 363.

2."Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian,"Orisins 12. See WalterJost, Rhetorkal Thonght in lohn I hurry Newman (South (July 1, 1990):118-126, no. 4; suction 111; and no. 38. Hereinafter Carolina: University of Smth Carolina Press, 1989), 108-138. David referred to as "Instruction." tlammond has traced a similar view which he calls Newman's "hermeneutical theology" in "Imagination and Hermeneutical Theology: 3. John Henry Newman,An 1:!Niy in Aid of a Graminari4 AsAwt(1870). Newman'sContribution to Theological Method," The Downside Reiliew Edited, introduction, and notes by I.T. Ker (Oxford: ('larendon Press, (Jan. 1988): 17-34. 1485), Pagination of Newman's 1881 edition. Ilereinafter referred to as Gramma, 13. John Henry Newman, TheVia Mediaof the Anglican Church (1837). Edited with Introduction and Notes by 11.1). Weidner (Oxford: 4. My emphasis; see chapk1 VIII, section 2, "Informal Inference," in Clarendon Press, 1990). Hereinafter referred to as theVia Media, theGrammar, 288-329. 14. Also see Via Media, 5. John Henry Newman, The Idea of a University, Defined and Illustratol (published, 1873), integrarog theDiscourseN on the Scope and Nature of 15. Newman wrote, "(rMigions teaching itself affords us an illustra- liniver.uly Education(published, 1853), with the Lechiresand risays on tion of our subject," John Henry Newman, I Iistorical Sketches, volume UnwerOty Subjects(published, 1859). Edited, introduction, and notes III(London:Longmans, (keen, and Co., 1981), 14.Hereinafter by LT. Ker (Oxford: Clarendon l'ress, 1976). Page references are to the referred to as 11.5. final (ninth) edition (1889).1 iereinat ter referred to asIdea. lb. The "13eclaration on Religious liberty," no. 9, in Flannery. Vatican 6. Newman's Ilnwer.iitti tiernion.i, with introductory essays bv 1).M I I, tiOti, MacKinnon and JD 1 lonws (London! SI'CK, 1970), nn.In his 1873 editnm.fesitnote described the reasoning 'if clinsciviiceas -an implicit 17. In his 1877 preface to the Via Media Newman again asserted that actof reasonIng" (tierniolls, on, Newman's eaiphasis), a term that he "there was nothing wrong in censuring abrupt, Istartling,I unsettling, later identilk.d with informal interencef "such a provess 01 reasoning unverified dischIsures" (Via Media, 1v); the weird Istartlingl appears in is 'mire or less iniplicit: U ;ranimin, 292). the standard edition (I.ongmam., Green, and Col,89 it, but not in Weidner's edition, 7.lie expressed this in French, "cote conscience de l'Fglise," John Ionry Newman, I in GuIsisili»s the l.ii film/ tatter...011)0i trine (I 8;10 18. The "Dogmatic Cemstitution tin Ow Church," no. 25, in Hannerv, 1:dited with an introduLtion In. John Coulson (London.(,eoltrev Vatican II, 17(1-38land the "instruction," no 11-17, and 24.The Chapman. 191,1), 71. 11er...inane( rehired to as t..ims. "Instruction" asserts that truths propiised in a definitive way "must be firmly accepted and held," no, 23, 8. letter dated in April, 1870, to Richard lion I lutton, the literary editor of the Spectator, in Ow I etre?, rind !)sariest)/ Johu I ienrn Norman, 19- The "Decree on Ecumenism," noI I. in Hannay,Vathan IL462. 11 volumes, ed C s I )essain et al., vol.. 1 -n, h k ird. Clarendon l'ress. Charles Curran has attempted to develip the distinction between 978-84), vol., 11.2211 ondon. Oxtord Lniversity l'ress, 1%1-72); voIs. intallibleand non-infallible teachings by ditterentia Wig what is cent ral 23- 11 (Ox lord. C larendim 1971-77).1 lerematter relerred to as and peripheral to the faith, see "NIA]. Dissent in the Church," tellers. Only 11, 198b): 181.

20.1:01 i)"Instruction," nil. 18.1 he ipposite view, that "the ti'ai hung ol hie a valuable and stk. nu Ihistory of the term "ordinars is dependent on lhe Lon...len... 01 (he tait hull- was stated liv some magisterium" see William W May. "Catholic Moral Tv clung and the Funipean theoli wails in "The (. olt igno 1)e. larat ion," ( ftNui, ( \ in 2, 1 inuts of Dissent," in Vatican Anthoritn and American eh qieti, Dissent, 1984): ol4 (no. 11, edited bv William W. May (New ork t-rossroads 148'n

10. Ayers. Dulles, sJ, he1 lireehild ( /Hitt. In 'Newman., I IA ituael 21 The recent Vatican "Instruction" i lainis that documents Ini.;11 thy. ()gv," in 'tioemair Atter a 1ii,ui rcil low., edited lw Ian Ker and Alan C. kongregation- expressly approved br the pope participate in the ordi- 111111000rd- Clarendon Press, 194(0,182 nary magisteri um- ('llistrudien; my 17). The moNt insightful collet-- tliniN of essays on authority and dissent in the Catholic tradition are,

22 24 William W. May, ed., Vatican Authority, and Charles Cumin and Newman's View of Theology," Proceedings: The Catholic Tlwological Richard McCormick, eds., Raiding!: in Moral Theology No. 6: Dissmtin Society of Anwrica (vol. 40., 1985): 127-144. the Church (New York: Pau list, 1988). 27, John Henry Newman, "Remarks on Certain Passages in the Thir- 22. Charles Cumin argues that the requirement ofa mandate in the ty-Nine Articles" (Tract 90), Tracts for the Thnes, vol. VI (London: new Code of CammIMO,canon I412, implies 11w latter view, "Public Rivington, 1841). The Anglican theologian Sheridan Gilley describes Dissent in the Church," 179. 1 explain that Newman unambiguously the difficulty of Newman's attempt in Tract 90 toprove that the espoused the former view. Thirty-Nine Articles of Anglicanism could be read ina Catholic sense 23. See, "Instruction," no. 14, 40. as an exercise that looked like squaring the circle, Newman And I Iis Age (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 19901, 1914. 24. Although William Ribando, CSC, makesno reference to Newman's interpretative theology, he shrewdly notes that his teaching of truth 28. "1 lumanae Vitae" (Encyclical Letter of l'opts Paul VIon the Regtta- tion of thigh, JnI was regulated by pastoral concerns, "Newman on Prophecy and Dis- 25, 1968), in !we and Sexuality, ed. (Mile M. Liebard sent," The Catholic World (Jan./14+. 1990): 42. Terence Merrigan calls (Wilmington, North Carolina: A Consortium Ikxik,1978),336-338 (no. 12-14). this Newman's "devotional sense" in "Newimm theTheologian," 1,0111'11inStudies (bummerFall, 1990): 113. 29. Robert C. Selby, The Principle of Reserve in the Writings of John I lenry 25. Newman learned of the principle ofeconomy from the early Cardinal Newman (Oxford: Oxford University l'ress, 1975), 99-101. Alexandrian Church, see his, The Arians of the Fourth Century,1833 30. This view has been most clearly expressed by James Gaffney, (London: I ongmans, Green, and Co., 1890), 65. "Newman as a Moralist," The Catholic World (Jan./1k4i. 1990): 27.

26. lan Ker, fohn Henry Newman. A Biography (Oxford: ('larendon 31. "Instruction," no. 35. On thq relation between the "sonsus fidei" and Press, 1988), 553. John T. Forth!, CSC, has insightfully examined how the "magisterium" of bishops, see the "Dogmatic Constitutionon the Newman encountered these conflicts in "Daiwingon the Tightrope": Church," no. 12, in Flannery, Valiran II, 30-364.

23 Cardinal Newman: A Study in Integrity

John R. Quinn

On August 11, 1890, John I lenry Newman died a peace- As is well known by now, Newman began his work ful, gentle death surrounded by his brothers of the Birmin- on theEssayin the midst of a crisis of religious identity; gham Oratory. A noble intellectual and spiritual mentor he was already leaffing strongly toward Rome, yet had passecl away such as seldom appears within any trying to remain an Anglican. A glance at the chronol- century of our human history. As we celebrate the centen- ogy of Newman's passage from Oxford to Rome shows ary of Newman's death, we do so conscious of the extraor- that theEssayis the fruit of a conversion already well on dinaty human being and Christian that he was during his the way. Nevertheless, Newman was "watching his own lifetime and of the ways, direct and indirect, in which he state of mind" regarding his move into the church of continues to speak to the church and the world of our day. Rome. He was testing it. In theApologiaNewman reports Today I would like to address Newman's integrity, the his state of soul at this juncture: path toward truth which his integrity led him to follow "To be certain is to know that one knows; what inward and Newman's enduring gift to the entire church in his test had I, that I should not change ago.% after that (sic) Essay on tlw Developnwnt of Christian Doctrine. I had become a Catholic? I had still apprdwnsion of this, though I thought a time would conw, when it would NEWMAN'S INTEMTY depart, ..I must do nly best and then leave it to a higher power to prosper it." The essay, and its significance for the church today, is To address such a state of soul, he wrote the Essay. very much tied to Newman's integrity. "So, at the end of 1844,1 ca me to the resolution of writing In a world of expediency and pragmatism, integrity of an essay on doctrinal development; and then, if at the the sort which Newman evinced seems rare. Yet it was end of it, my convictions in favor of the Roman church hnegritypersonal, intellectual and spiritualwhich led were not weaker, of taking the necessary steps for ad- Newman on the path from evangelicalism through the mission into her fold," Anglican phimediaand ultimately to the Catholic Church. Newman's motivation, therefore, was one of religimis It was integrity which required of him, in all honesty, to integrity, tested by the most rigorous standards of intel- articulate that journey and its implications in a way which lectual integrity. The stakes riding on tlw Essay were as challenges even today. We have much to learn from New- radical as his salvation itself. Indeed, he was to write a man, espedally in a time such as our own when, as Karl friend at the time of his contempkited move into the Rahner once intimated, people are impatient with the Catholic Church: preck,ion which leads to theological truth.' "(A)s far as I know myself, my one paramount reason Perhaps nowhere in his written works do we find this for contemplating a change is mvLew, unvarying con- intellectual and religious integrity more dearly revealed viction that... mysalvation depends on my joining the than in Newman's theological classic, AnEssay on the church of Rome."4 Development of Christian Doctrine.For it is in theEssay that In my view, this deep religious motivation, this e- allof Newman's intdlectual and religious forces converge. traordinary religious integrity, is central to an under- The Essay was for Newman not simply an exercise in standing of Newman and of his abiding pertimnce to scholarship; it was an intellectual test of his own religious our own religious situation. Neither his view of doctrinal convictions; it was an existential act undertaken in literary development nor even his researches in Ariankm, the form. university or the structures of knowledge can be ade- quately understood outside this religious context, the driving religious forces of his life. Fle' understood acute- John R Quinn OR art of San Francieo. delivered tin, addre,, jf ly what Anselm meant when he said that theology is Loyohi &fin mount I ItH!'i'ritI, inI o, Angelo., in 0( h)ber. Was faith seeking an understanding of itself. originally iniblvdied in the I ..brnary I qt) I , Ui t C )rigi

24 2 6 COMING TO GRIPS WITH DOCTRINAL Newman was to suggest an altogether different view: CHANGE that doctrines had developed through an organic interaction between the "idea" of Christianity revealed by But what had triggered this dramatic change in God in Jesus Christ and the very human history of the Newman's religious posturea move awy from the church itself. One result of this organic developmental church of his birth, of his nation and culture, :nr.! of his process, situated in human history, was the emergence beloved university to a foreign church with which he was of new doctrine, authoritatively taught because it is only mildly acquainted and about which he felt uncertain, integrally tied to the ancient sources of the tradition and almost to the eve of his reception in it? After all, as late as rooted in biblical revelation.This model of organic 1841 he would still be able to write that "Protestantism, so development of doctrine would meet Newman's own widely spread and so long enduring, must have in it, and exacting standards of intellectual and spiritual integrity. must be witness for, a great truth or muchtruth."5 The Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine takes as And he was willing to find that truth, if he could.It its point of departure the simple observation that the was, in fact, truth that Newman sought, and here again claims of faith and the testimony of history do not always the force of his integrity was extraordinary. So driven or obviously support each other. New doctrines, claims was he to secure the truth, rather than a pale evocation and moral teachings have arisen in the course of time of it dressed up in religious emotion, that he resolved, which do not obviously appear at earlier c...,riods in the even though he felt a religious affection for the Catholic church's life. Since this problem of a possible conflict be- Church, to steel his mind and address on the basis of tween historical testimony and the claims of faith is central, reason alone, the entire proposition of whether to adopt historical evidences playa major role in the Essay's method. the Catholic faith. "I had to determine its logical value, The evidences of history could lead to the negative con- and its bearing upon my duty."6 clusion that the present form of the Catholic Church is far For Newman, intellect and will worked closely together, removed from the original idea of Christianity, that the tho will tested by the intellect, the intellect prodded by the original religion has gradually decayed or become corrupt will. And Newman was willing to be patient with the or "that it cannot even be said either to have decayed or to proass, trusting that his religious leanings, if authentic, have died, because historically it has no substance of its would withstand the intellectual tests to which he was own."10 On the other hand, tiwse same evidences of his- about to put them. "Great acts," he said, "take time. tory could point to an underlying continuity through Newman faced a difficult question which had a direct change in the successive ages of the church. bearing on his life as a theologian and as a Christian: Newman makes the reasonable assumption that con- Recognizing that change had occurred in the doctrinal tinuity, or substantial identity, exists between the teach- tradition of the Catholir Church, how could this change ings and practices of the apostolic church and the be explained in a way that would not compromise his modern Catholic Church, for "the external continuity of intellectual and spiritual integrity? At first, there seemed name, profession and communion argues for a real con- only three possible solutions. tinuity of doctrine." Protestantism's break in this con- At one extreme, one could simply trivialize or even tinuity, on the other hand, leads to the conclusion that dismiss the importance of doctrine altogether, adopt an the "Christianity of history is not Protestantism. If these anti-dogmatic stance and enthusiastically embrace the ever was a safe truth, it isthis."11 These words might newest formulations of faith without regard to their astonish our ears, accustomed as we are to irenic rootedness in doctrinal tradition. In Newman's opinion, ecumenical dialogue. But for a 19th-century Christian this was the error of liberal Protestantism, a view amply who took history as seriously as Newman did, it was not represented in the Anglican Church of his day.8 difficult to reach this conclusion. Second, one could adopt a fundamentalist approach On the other hand, the evidence of history cuts two to faith and explain apparent doctrinal changes by in- ways: It may undercut the claim that Protestantism is the voking biblical texts. The result would be a religion Christianity of history, but it does not positively primarily constituted of emotions and feelings, with demonstrate that in the Catholic Church is embodied the little regard for the creedal and doctrinal elements of Christianity of history/. Only if historical evidences are Christian faith, with "no intellectual basis; no internal read within the hypothesis of the development of Chris- idea, no principle of unity, no theology."9 In Newman's tian doctrine will they tell either for or against the con- mind, this was the flaw of evangelicalism. tinuity of the Catholic faith. Newman proceeded in the Finally, one could ado mantly refuse to acknowledge Essay to test this hypothesis of doctrinal development by change and adopt instead a narrow-minded resistance dipping further into the evidences of history, and he to the very notion of a living tradition and insist upon a concluded, as we know, that there was no longer any dogmatically pronounced orthodoxy rooted in a mythi- reason for him not to go over to the Catholic Church, cal Golden Age of Christianity. This position was rep- which was, as far as he could honestly judge, truly one, resented within the Catholic Church by ultra montanism holy, catholic and apostolic. "Before I got to the end (of and later by integralism. the Essay)," he reported, "I was resolved to be received,

25 2 '7 and the book remains in the state in which itwas then, man was later to write: unfinished."12 "Experience proves surely that the Bible does not answer a purpose for which it was never intended. It NEWMAN'S PATH TO THE ESSAY may be accidentally the means of the conversion of individuals; but a book, after all, cannot makea stand At this point, it would be helpful to focuson Newman against the wild living intellect of man." 15 himself and the problems he faced within Anglicanism Scripture could not be read outside history andespe- in order to appreciate his workon development as it cially not outside the developing tradition of the church. reveals his profound intellectual and spiritualintegrity. As Newman explained in the Essay on Devdopment: Before he wrote the Essay, Newman expressed deep "The whole Bible, not its prophetical portions only, is concern about what he termed the "present-day misti- written on the principle of development. As revelation ness" of an Anglican Church which seemedmore proceeds, it is ever new, yet ever old."16 Protestant than Catholic. In his estimation, mid-19th- Newman believed tha' evangelicalism, by abandon- century Anglicanism had adopted approaches to ing history and tradition, had divorced itself from the religious truth which attempted to appeal to popular church of antiquity and had rejected the historicalna- views and sensibilities and were in thissense "safe." ture of Christianity. That had devastating implications These approaches had resulted in skepticism,agnos- for members of a church who counted themselves ticism and even atheism. Suchwas to be expected, he among the apostolic family of faith. The rejection of argued, of a church where various forms of rationalism doctrinal tradition, together witha reiigiosity that em- issued from both its evangelical and liberal branches, It phasized subjective experienceover the transcendent seemed to Newman that the Church of England had glory of God,' 7 would eventually lead to rationalism. become a refuge for a kind of religiosity which couldnot In Newman's view, then, the Anglican Church of his possibly stand up to rigorous intellectualtests, Anti- day, plagued by both liberalism and evangelicalism, dogmatic liberals and evangelical rationalists, Newman lacked doctrinal consistency or clarity. With the liberals believed, were trying to take over the Church of England. clearly in mind, Newman described the mind of the In the extreme, the liberal bearers ofan anti-dogmatic typical 19th-century Anglican. Sucha person: Gospel reduced doctrine to pious opinion, pitted revealed religion against scientific empiricism andex- "Can set down half a dozen general propositions, alted private judgment over the legitimate authority of which escape from destroyingone another only by doctrinal tradition.In Newman's opinion, these so- being diluted into truisms, called "liberals" within the Anglican Church repre- "Can hold the balance between oppositesso skill- sented a Protestant extreme in their rejection of doctrinal fully as to do without fulcrumor beam, tradition and uncritical accommodation tocurrent opinions. Although he concluded that 19th-century "Never enunciates a truth without guarding h:m- self from being supposed to exclude the contradic- Anglican liberalism was "too cold"an opinion to sway tory, _ many people, it was symbolic for him of the malaise which had struck the Anglican Church. "Holds that Fcripture is the only authority, yet that Evangelicalism was perhapsmore threatening than the church is to be deferred to, liberalism, because it had more popular appeal.1'New- "That faith only justifies, yet that it doesnot justify man had been reared in the evangelical wing of the without works, Anglican Church. The evangelicals of his youth hadbeen "That grace does not dependon the sacraments, stalwart champions of the Protestant credo sok Scriptura yet is not given without them, and were relentless critics of that "anti-Christ,"the church "That bishops are a divine ordinance,yet those of Rome. Newman's own reading in the history ofthe who have them not are in thesame religious con- church and of the Scriptum themselves graduallymade dition as those who have." it intellectually impossible for him to accept sucha fun- damentalistic positicin, regardless of his early religious 1-k concludes in a somewhat sardonic vein: roots. In one o( his famous Oxford Tracts, hewas to argue "This is your safe man and the hope of the church; this that it was inconsistent for evangelical Anglicansto argue is what the church is said to want, notparty men, but against the apostolic succession on grounds that it isno, sensible, temperate, sober, well-judgingpersons, to clearly founded in the Bible, but to accept the divinityof guide it through the channel of no-meaning, between the Holy Spirit, which is not literally spelledout in the the Scylla and Charybdis of Aye and No." 18 Bible. "Indeed," he said, "themore arguments there are Newman could not honestly count himselfamong the for a certain doctrine found in Scripture, themore objec- company of such ":.ober, well-judging persons" who, in tions will be found against it." 14 the end, stood for no truth whatsoever, but only Exasperated by those who would have demanded lukewarm religious mistiness. "Piebald" rationalism,1 more of the Bible than it was intended to convey, New- in Newman's view, abused rather than exalted the facul-

26 ty of reason, threatened to evacuate revealed religion of simply an unrealized dream. all claim to truth o. reality and could lead toone thing Here, if I may suggest it, is where Newman's theological only, "a simple unbelief in matters of religion."20 Hewas co, gribu lion in the Essay on Development is most significant. arguing, ht fact, that such rationalism could only lead to By turning to history as he did, Newman introduceda atheism.21 method which is essential to undertaking authentic theology. Newman did not use history simply to prove a TOWARD THE CATHOLIC ALTERNATIVE foredrawn conclusion (fiat the contemporary Catholic THROUGH HISTORY Church was continuous with the early Christian faith. Rather, he turned to history as the source of his theological If atheism was the logical conclusion of Anglican inspiration, because it was within history that the central liberalism and various forms of rationalism, itsan- events of Christian faith took place. History is therefore tithesis was the C^tholic Church, embodyinga religion the likely place to look for those 'antecedent probabilities" steeped in history, a religion which prima faciewas that guide theological investigation into the mystery of apostolic, a religion which (unlike evangelicalism) read Christ and of his church, and history is also the place to the Scriptures in the context of tradition,a religion of look for testing and corroboration of theological manifest holiness and, above all, a religion which forth- hypotheses. This historical methodology constitutesa rightly believed that the revealed truth of God could be tremendous gift to theological scholarship.23 articulated in doctrine. In the end, Newman'sconver- Precisely why is this historical method sucha gift to sion was to rest on the logical antithesis between atheism the church, and especially to theologians,even in our and the Catholic Church: own age? Let me suggest two reasons. First, Newman's "I came to the conclusion that therewas no medium, in historical method is needed todayas an apologetic tool, true philosophy, between atheism and Catholicity, and as a means of mediating the faith with the world at large. that a perfectly consistent mind, under those circumstan- Second, Newman's historical method is needed today to ces in which it finds itself here below, must embrace either deepen and ground theological discourse within the the one or the other. And I hold this still."22 church itself. But Newman was not to reach this conclusion before his own project of a middle way, a via media between Protes- NEWMAN'S METHOD AND tantism (represented especially by the liberals) and the CONTEMPORARY APOLOGETICS Catholic Church, had itself collapsed.Again, it was Newman's integrity that pressed hissense of duty. His First, the apologetic task. Where Newmansaw a neces- own scholarly work on early Christological controversies sary choice between the Catholic Church, on the one hand, had already begun to shake his faith in the via media, for he and atheism on the other, it is now clear that much of the saw in the Monophysites of the fifth century a middle world has opted either for a culturally accepted agnosticism ground, neither hot nor cold, and uncomfortably like the or for atheism, either as a philosophical credo or as a de facto middle ground of the still theoretical via media, andeven existential stance. The sheer force of agnosticism and of like the stance of the 19th-century liberals themselves. atheism in our time cannot be denied. In Europe, the The now-famous 1839 article by Cardinal Nicholas United States and the industrialized West, the Wiseman titled "Anglican Claim to Apostolical Succes- phenomenon of the cultural dismissal of Christianity is sion," shook Newman to thecore. The via media had growing, especially among the educated classes,a fact rested on the claim of antiquitythat Anglicanismwas which has become the subject of increasing commentary.24 an authentic branch of the church catholic because it It is quite clear that the Enlightenment's cleavage between held what had been held everywhere, by all Christians, faith and the world, between revealed truth and secular at all timesthe criteria that had been expounded by St. knot. 'Age, still very strongly defines the contours of the Vincent of Lerins in the fifth century. But Wiseman educated consciousness, even in whatsome have called a invoked another ancient principle for determining the postmodern and post-Christian era. authenticity of doctrinal claims, Augustine'ssecurus It is not merely coincidental, but rather in keeping with judicat orbis terrarum, which can be roughly renderedas his uncanny foresight that Newman could write 20years "that which the entire oikumene of the church judgesto after his conversion of this new and "wonderful age" and be true is held securely." of "the enlargement of the circle of secular knowledge"to It was painfully clear to Newman that the via media the point of bewilderment, "the moreso, because it has the could not withstand such a test:It was as yet a paper- promise of continuing, and that with greater rapidity and thin church, the dream of which was dearly held by only more signal results." lie added that whereas liberalism a few Oxford dons, hardly by the entire world church. was formerly the moniker of a theological party within Catholicity had to be a real historical mark of the church, Anglicanism, it had more recently hqcome "nothing else not merely an ideal, and the concrete reality of that than .deep, plausible skepticism."2' historical mark had to be evident in history. After all, Such cultural skepticism, (reed of its religiousroots and Christianity itself was a fact of the world's history,not buttressed by a positivistic view of science,was putting

27 ) many Christians on the defensive in the 19th century and "plurality and ambiguity" of method,as Father David alarming others. The problem forNewman was not the Ttacy has noted.2 At few other challenge of science times in the history of as such; he was unperturbed by the church has the need beenmore urgent to have at our Darwin's findings.26 The problemfor Newman was the disposal a theological approach, displacement of an intellectually a method if you will, and historically which would enableus to rise to the challenges we face, grounded religious faith by a smug scientism which dis- In recent years, there has beenincreasing collaboration missed religious faithas so much pious puffery and which among Catholic and non-Catholic theologianson these claimed that its own methods hadrendered traditional and other issues. Such collaboration theology obsolete. Newman's is to be applauded recovery of a rigorous his- and ought to be continued. Catholictheology has been torical method was joined witha reaction to the cultural particularly enriched by non-Catholic dismissal of the legitimacy of faith. scholarship in such fields as Scripture, philosophicalhermeneutics and Newman's Essay can therefore beseen as model cultural anthropology. At the response to such cultural developments. Rather same time, Catholics have than been discovering that this collaborationhas sometimes argue for the plausibility and authenticity ofCatholic come at a high pricethe diminution of faith on the basis of the our own terms of the argument set by theological stock, a dilution ofour theological tradition. various opponents, Newman, in histypically apologeticg Catholic theologian Father Matthew fashion, rested his Lamb of Boston case on the evidences which are most College recently described themixed situation of native to Christianity itself: thehistory of faith, faith in Catholic academic theology a God who became incarnate in history and in an era of ecumenical whose collaboration.28 Hehas noted that while Catholic scholars revelation spans history from beginning to end. Rather have learned the methods andissues of Protestant theol- than cede the terms of theargument to the proponents of empiricism, scientism ogy in recent years, especially at the great secularcenters or skepticism, or to their of higher learning in thiscoy itry, their Own Catholic religious cousins the fundamentalists,liberals and the heritage itself has been slighted. atheists, Newman turned instead Indeed, it must be said to the sources: Scrip- that some Catholic institutionsseem to have been quite ture read within the context of tradition,tradition read willing to downplay their within the context of Scripture, own theological tradition. the patristic literature Among Catholic theologians therehas been a marked and the history of the churchitself, including its d iminishmei a of the classic theological history. Only by sources of Catholic theology so doing could he live up to in patristics, classical theology andparticularly the work the standards of intellectualand religious integrity of St. ThomP. .A 'minas. This is which he had set for himself. a matter of concern not only for the C. -Ii.ilic Church, but for the sake of effective pastoral ministry and ofcontinuing an authentic NEWMAN'S METHOD AND ecumenical collaboration. CONTEMPORARY THEOLOGY What Newman represents isa major direction theological scholarship can follow in theyears ahead toward a This leads us naturally tomy second point: Newman's recovery of the treasures of our respective theological historical method is especiallynposite to a deepening traditions. Newman could not have tested of theological discourse wits his religious .ae church itself. Since integrity or the theory of doctrinal developmentapart from Newman's time vast horizons havebeen opened up for his intellectual integrity. That the theological and ecclesiastical intellmtual integritywas worlds that he himself undergirded by a strong foundationin biblical languages, could not have foreseen: theimmensity and ramifica- the classics, Scripture, patristics, history tions of historical consciousness and theology. He as an absolutely critical had intellectual deficiencies,to be sure: a less than ade- factor in the articulation of Christianbelief and practice; quate grasp of modern European languages, the reality and role of inculturation certainly no in that same process; deep grounding in medievaltheology and a less than the relationship of Christianityto the other world thorough acquaintance with the religions, in other words, the major theological currents question of the unique of the continent. But he hadat his disposal a method of claims of Christianity; the centralityof the living wor- theological inquiry which allowed ship of the church him to traverse those as a primary organ of tradition (a deficiencies and to drawon his strengths, to establish factor Orthodox Christians have a never failed to acknow- solid contact with the faith traditionand to make a real ledge and to ponder); andfinally, the undt:rstanding that doctrinal development contribution to the theology of thechurch. The recovery of embraces not just such a historical methodon a widespread basis within homogeneous growth,upon which Newman focused todays thmlogical seminaries his attention, but also what, for and graduate schools of want of a better phrase, theology, particularly within theCatholic world, is sorely is called the element of"discontinuity"a highly needed at this time. If theologians charged issue for Christians who can follow Newman's take the role and force lead in recoveringa historical theological method in the of tradition seriously. next few years for the sake of the future This is a tall theological order, generations of the and as we know, it is church, they will have madean immeasurable contribu- only the tip of the iceberg. Oursis a time of tremendous tion to the cause of Christian faith.

28 ORTHODOXY WITH INTEGRITY in his Anglican days. TheEssay on Development isa perennial refutation of One final observation. It is not an exaggeration to say all that integralism stands for and of the pseudo-or- theEssayand, once again, the orientation of Newman's thodoxy which is its manifesto. Written a century and a whole life, are a singular proclamation of the critical half ago and almost 120 years before the Second Vatican importance of orthodoxy. It was after all, horror at Council, theEssaywas a prophetic utterance whose doctrinal indifference and its practical implications in value and applicability are still being discovered in our ecclesiastical life that brought about the Oxford Move- day, especially in relation to the historical and theologi- ment and moved Newman to write theEssay. cal challenges and insights of this century. TheEssaywas Newman's orthodoxy, however, is not that of a dog- a prophetic utterance to a Christian world not yet ready matic crusader for a past age, but rather that of a subtle to understand and enter into dialogue with its author. and sensitive lover of truth whose reverence for truth Yet in God's time it became an utterance that contributed would not permit him to reduce orthodoxy to the mere in rich measure to the change in climate and viewpoint repetition of lifeless, unchanging formulas.It is this that made possible the vision and message of the Second delicate balance and tension between a love and respect Vatican and of our own ecumenical era. for tradition, on the one hand, an openness to change Newman's inspiration lay behind the oft-quoted and development, on the other, that makes Newman so words of Pope John XXIII in his address to the bishops crucially relevant a century after his death. at the opening session of the Second Vatican Council in Permit me to dte one instance of Newman's relevance in October 1962: ourtime.29 The Catholic Churchat present is beset in some "Our duty is not only to guard this precious treasure, quarters by what French theologians have calledin- as if we were concerned only with antiquity, but to tegralism.Integralism is a cast of mind and outlook that is dedicate ourselves with an earnest will and without fear

in some ways more pernicious than doctrinal indifference to the work that our era demands of us. .The substance or heterodoxy. Whereas the liberals of Newman's day dis- of the ancient doctrine of the deposit of faith is one thing, torted Christianity by hying to please everybody, ending and the way in which it is presented is another. And it with a "mistiness" that believes nothing, the integralist is the latter that must be taken into great conside; ation. tries to absolutize everything but ends with a fundamen- talism that is untenable. Integra lists are self-proclaimed, CONCLUSION champions of "wholeness" of Catholic belief, muchas fundamentalists are self-proclaimed masten, of the Bible. In conclusion, let us acknowledge Newman as a figure They use in abundance the vocabulary of ort,wdoxy and whose intellectual and religious integrity continue to cite, selectively, papal and other church teachings in order challenge us to grow and to change in ways yet to be to buttress their rigidity of mind. made clear to us. This is the kilid of integrity which Karl While heresy, by its very defivition, strikes out a par- Barth was later to invoke when he said that clarity and ticular element of faith by its one-sided and exclusive simplicity in things of religion come not at the beginning concentration on another, integralism strikes ultimately at of the journey, but only at its end.32 We would do well the whole fabric of faith. It believes that faith, the church to follow Newman in his journey and to take to heart the and doctrine, coming from the past, must remain unaf- words with which ends theEssay on Developnwnt: fected by the present or the future, must admit of no "Put not from you what you have here found; regard diversity of expression andhaveno new horizons of un- it not as mere matter of present controversy; set out not derstanding. resolved to refute it, and looking about for the best way Newman, with his expansive vision and sense of history, of doing so; sec' ace not yourself with the imagination was himself the object of attack by the integra list mentality, that it comes of disappointment, or disgust, or restless- which he described in 1867 to his intellectual opposite, ness, or wounded feeling, or undue sensibility or other William George Ward, the Catholic editor of the Dublin weakness. Wrap not yourself round in the associations Review: "Pardon me if I say that you are making a church of years past; nor determine that to be truth which you within a church, as the Novations of old did, (Y)ou are wish to be so nor make an idol of cherished anticipa- doing your best to make a party in the Catholic Church, tions, Time is short, eternity is long."33 and in St. Paul's words are dividing Christ by exalting your Today, may we follow Newman in his path of in- opinions into dogmas."1) Earlier, he had written, "It seems tegrity,ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem,out of the to me that atimeof great reaction and great trial is before shadows and through our imaginings into truth. us.01Indeed, he had been no stranger to great trial even

29 31 .)401

1. See "What Is Heresy?" in Theological Investigations, Vol. 5,Trans. of apostolic faith, such that they would cease to stand for anything real. KarlH. Kruger (Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1966), 503-504. Rationalistic reduction of the apostolic faith was tantamount to the abdication of real belief. One is left with the cultural and aesthetic 2. Apologia pro vita sua, ed. David J. DeLaura (New York:Norton, 1968), 176-77- accoutrements of religion, at most a pious unknowing (an agnosticism), but no real faith. 3. Ibid., W7. 22. Apologia, 156. 4. ibid. 23. Newman's insistence on history is all themore significant when we 5.Letter to C.W. Russell, April 26, 1841, as in I. Ker, folm Henry consider the state of theology in the middle of the 19th century. Although Newman: A Biography (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), 226. German theologians such as Mohler and others of the Tubingen school were beginning to engage in what today we would call historical theol- 6. Apologia,99. ogy, and while English divines, such as Newman himself, were engaged 7. 1hd., 136. The entire passage reveals his criticalstance toward a in extensive patristic and historical studies, the general state of theologi- mere "paper logie with no grounding in actual religious experience. cal scholarship within both the Church of England and the Church of "And then I felt altogether the force of the maxim of St. Ambrose, 'Non Rome was, to a very considerable degree, defensive and apologetic. Itis in dialectica complacuit Deo salvum facere populum suum';-1 hadgreat true that in the Catholic Church the intensity of 17th-century Counter- dislike of paper logic. For myself, it was not logic that carriedme on; Refomiational polemics had subsided but the air was, for all that,one of as well might one say that the quicksilver in the barometer changes a battlefield with the smell and sounds of artillery still fresh and harsh to the weather.It is the concrete being that reasons; pass a number of the senses. Furthermore, the overall mentality of the Roman churchand years, and I find my mind in a new place; how? the whole man moves; of the theologians who made up the bey of its auctores probatiwas paper logic is but the record of it. All the logic in the world would not pervasively-and serenely-ahistorical, almost bereft of thesense of have made me move faster toward Rome than I did... Great acts take historical consciothmess that one takes virtually for granted inour day, time." certainly in contemporaty theological research. For all practicalpurposes there had been no contributions to theological conversationsor even to 8, Ibid., 87. It should be clarified here that Newman'suse of the term the general life of the Roman church from the Anglo-Saxonviewpoint liberal cannot simply be transferred intoour own day without several for three centctries. critical mediati tris.The term simply had a different reference for Newman than it has for us. For Newman, it referred specificallyto a 24. See, for example, observations by Father Michael J. Buckley,SJ, "party" of thought within the Church of England. In his Apologiapro "Experience and Culture: A Point of Departure forAmerican vita sua, Newman published an appended "Note A: Liberalism,"in Atheism," Theological Studies 50-3 (September 1989), 443-465, and his which he acknowledged the multiple referents of the wordeven in his magisterial At the Origins of Modern Atheism (New Haven: Yale Univer- own time and even within the Catholic Church. Newman writes: "An sity Press, 1987). See also Karl Rattner, SJ, "The Church andAtheism," explanation is the more necessary, because such goodCatholics and Theologicallnvestigations 21 (New York: Crossroad, 1988), 138. distinguished writers as Count Montalembert and Father Lacordaire 25. Apologia, 219-220. use the word in a favorable sense and claim to be liberals themselves .,. I do not believe that it is possible for me to differ in any important 26. See Newman: A Biography, 624. matter from two men whom I so highly admire. I hesitate tc, adopt 27. Plurality and Ambiguity: Hermeneutics, Religion and HOW their language about liberalism, I impute the necessity of suchhesita- (San Fran- cisco: Harper and Row, 1987). tion to some differences between us in the use of wordsor in the circumstances of country; and thus I reconcile myself to remaining 28. "WO. Mere Be Catholic Theology in the United States?"America, faithful to my own conception of it." Apologia, 216. May 26, 1990, 523-534. 9. Ibid,, 87-88 29. Some of the commentary to follow is borrowed frommy earlier 10. Essay, 4. article "Synod '85: Keeping Faith With the Council,"America, Sept. 21, 1985. 11. Ibid., 7. 10. Newman compares Ward's set with the evangelicals, who"talk of 12. Apologia, 818. 'vital religion' and vital 'doctrines,' and will not allowthat their brethren 'know the Gospel' or are Gospel preachers unless 13. Set. ibid., 8% lel, they profess the small shibboleths of their own sect."lie concludes:"I 14. Tract 85, queaed and discussed by I. Ker, New»lim. A Biography,160. protest then again, not against your tenets, but against what Imust call your schismatical." As quoted by John Coulson in the Introduction to 15. ApWogia, p. 188. On Consulting the Faithful in Mailers of Doctrilw (London;Geoffrey Chapman, 1% II, 47. lb, An 1Ini on the niTelopmentp Christian Poctrine, 1878 rev. ed., ed. Charles I. I Ia rrold (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1041))W. 31. From a letter to Ambrose St. Jolm, May 1857,asreported in Meriol 17. Discussed by I. Ker, Newman: 'Frevor, Newman: Light in Winter (Garden City, NY.: Doubleday, A thography,122. 19o3), 10. IS. Apeehlghl, 88 12. "The simplicity which proceeds from the. apprehensionof God in 19. Quoted by I. Ker, Newman A lhographii, 120. the Bible and elsewlwre, the simplicity with which Godhimself speaks, stands not at the beginning of our journey but at its end. Thirty 20. Apologia, 187. years hence we may perhaps speak of simplicity, but now letus speak the truth. For us wither the Epistle to the Romans, 21. "As I have already said, there are but two a!ternatives, theway to nor the present theological position, nor (he present state of the worldnor the relation Rome and tlw way to atheism: Anglicanism is the halfwayhouse on the olle side, and liberalism is the halfway house between God and the world is simple. And he whois now concerned on the other," with the truth must boldly acknowledge that he Apologia, p. 1o0. Newman's use of theterm atheism remains to be cannot be simple." explored.It is unlikely that 1w atheism Newman intended Epistle to tin' Romans, Preface to the. 2nd ed., (London:Oxford Univer- either the, say Press, 1472), 5. materialistic atheism of the Enlightenmentor the idealistic atheism of Feuerbach. Atheism was rather the loss of belief in theprepositions 13. 1:.isau, 41o.

30 Faculty Address

James L. Heft, SM

I am especially pleased to welcome the new members instance, no more tells the story of an educa- to our faculty. These new members are the first group tion than a railroad timetable tells the story of that I had the opportunity to interview myself, a process ajourney.1 that I found to be not only enjoyable and obviously I ask you to remember that in your classroom, in your important for our future as a university, but also educa- laboratory, and in your office, each of you is this univer- tional, for I learned from them their dreams and aspira- sity. I realize that all of you, the new faculty as well as tions, why they chose academk careers, what they those who are returning for their second or fifth or believe is the purpose of education. Moreover, I learned twenty-fifth year, have dreams and aspirations. Let us about their special areas of research and thus about support each other in achieving these worthy goals. many disciplines unfamiliar to me. Many important issues will be competing for our at- We have begun our 141st academic year at this univer- tention in the months and years ahead. As we busy sity. It is good to be here, to set our hands and hearts and ourselves taking up the various elements of our academic heads once again to the taskthat of providing the plan, it is important that we look more carefully than richest of possible experiences of learning and thinking ever at our fundamertal purposes as a community of for oar students and for each other. An increased level teachers and scholars. Otherwise, we might too easily of energy and excitement courses through the campus become either dismayed at the sheer size of the task as we once again set about achieving our academic before us or too quickly distracted by matters that are goals. The late A. Bartlett Giamatti, president of Yale immediately urgent, but important only as they con- from 1978 to 1986, described our moment well when he tribute to our larger purpose. In an effort to focus our addressed the fir;t-year students at Yale in August of attention on the foundational matters, I ask us this after- 1985: noon to reflect for a few minutes on what it is that we There is a quickening of the blood, a sense of are about as an educational community. pleasurable adventure, every autumn in this The most articulate proponent of liberal education place because once again we all gather was John Henry Newman, who died one hundred years together, the new people and those who have ago this past August 11. Above all, for Newman, a liberal gathered before, to start the formal process of education teaches a person how to think. In Discourse making-with-the-mind that is called educa- VII of hisThe Idea of a University,he offers this elegantly tion. Of course, more than the mind is in- crafted description of a liberally educated man (the volved, more than the formal process is education of women was not then a serious considera- engaged, for education is a matter involving tion, though his observations apply equally to all). A character as well as intellect, the heart and university education is spirit as well as the mind, the extracurriculum the education which gives a man a clear con- as well as the formal course of study; education is something longer, broader, deeper, sdous view of his own opinions and judg- than the 13 weeks of instruction for eight ments, a truth in developing them, an eloquence in expressing them, and a force in semesters, just as it is more than the learning that occurs in classroom, laboratory, and urging them. It teaches him to see things as they are, to go right to the point, to disentangle library, just as it is far more than an accumula- a skein of thought, to detect what is sophistical, tion of information and the acquisition of fact and to discard what is irrelevant. It prepares and the compila tion of grades. A transcript, for him to fill any post with credit, and to master any subject with facility. It shows him how to Fr. I left I.: provost of the Unwer:qtyot Dayton accommodate himself to others, how to throw highest of academic standards and the deepest of himself into their state of mind, how to bring religious insight. We aim to educate not only good before them his own, how to influence them, people who act nobly, but also educated people who act how to come to an understanding with them, wisely. We aim to graduate people who in loving God how to bear with them. He is at home in any have come through that love to love others more society, he has common ground with every generously, and have come to dedicate themselves to class; he knows when to speak and when to be the formation of communities of support and con- silent; he is able to converse, he is able to listen; science. With Rousseau, we want our students to dis- he can ask a question pertinently, and gain a cover their potential, and with Jane Addams we want lesson seasonably, when he has nothing to them to discover that potential through lives lived in the impart himself; he is ever ready, yet never in service of others. Finally, we educate to enable our stu- the way; he is a pleasant companion, and a dents to be in the world, but not of it, to discard, in the comrade you can depend upon; he knows words of Newman, what is irrelevant, to see things as when to be serious and when to trifle, and he they really are, to speak so that others may always learn, has a sure tact which enables him to trifle with and to act so that others may always benefit. In short, gracefulness and to be serious with effect. He the purpose of education in the tradition of this univer- has the repose of a mind which lives in itself, sity is to pursue both academic excellence and religious while it lives in the world, and which has integrity while building a community that dedicates resources for its happiness at home when it itself to service. cannot go abroad.2 Secondly, I ask what Newman's description of the liberally educated person has to do with an education in Newman's description of the truly educated person is science or the professions. With the rise of science, par- admittedly idealistic. But as I reflected upon his ideal, I ticularly after Newman's contemporary Charles Dar- found myself thinking about our own university and win, a great division of opinion rose up over the purpose raised for myself four questions that I believe we should of education. Should education be based on the cur- think about. First, what is the purpose of education; riculum of traditional humanistic studies such as second, what role do the sciences and the professions philosophy, history, language, literature, and the fine have in liberal education; third, what ought to be dif- arts? Or, given the rapid growth of modern science, ferent about the shape and purpose of education at a should education concentrate on training in such dis- Catholic university; and fourth, what are the distinctive ciplines as biology, chemistry, and physics? This debate qualities of our own university? When we ask what is the purpose of education, we has been described in C.F. Snow's The two Cultures and by Lawrence Biondi, SJ, in "Educational Aims of the er.ter into a discussion that has been engaged in since Liberal Arts Curriculum: Contextual Education," in the beginning of recorded history of civilization. Plato Jesuit Higher Education published by Duquesne Univer thought education should produce good persons who sity Press. acted nobly. St. Thomas Aquinas believed its goal was The issue was first directly joined in nineteenth-cen- the love of God and of neighbor. Rousseau thought it tury England by two great educators, Matthew Arnold should bring students to realize their unique potential as individuals. And Jane Addams argued it was flu: and Thomas Huxley. For Arnold, the truly educated person knew "the best which has been thought and said basis for democracy and community. In 1928, the ad- in the world." Arnold believed that the only way one ministrators of tne University of Notre Dame stated that, could learn the best of thought and of writing was as far as they were concerned, they hoped to "cloister a through an education in the humanities, especially boy for four years from the ways of the world and... give him a demonstration of the workability of (their] literature. Huxley disagreed, believing that all truly educated persons needed to understand the workings principles," and then "send him out ready to pay tribute to Caesar without losing his soul." of their world. For Huxley, the only effective way to acquire such understanding was through the study of In the spring of this year, the president of the Americao the natural sciences. Association of Colleges, John W. Chandler, noted that Newman did not eschew the study of science, but he religiously affiliated universities may be more success- ful in assisting students in the exploration of "those did not wish to give it the central role that Huxley wanted it to assume. What should our stance be on this religious worldviews and life-styles that challenge the question? Were we to focus all of our energies and consumerist and self-aggrandizing norms that devote all our resources to liberal education alone, at dominate our national life." He argued that "those institutions that are rooted in particular religious tradi- least in the sense that Newman understood liberal tions possess a heritage that relates to some of the education, we would fail in preparing our students for the world into which they must enter and in which they deepest questions their students are asking." 3 For us at must make their way. At the same time, Huxley's view this university, I would suggest that our vision of education must include both the head and the heart, both the seriously underestimates the perennial relevance of a

32 3L", liberal education, the role which Newman expressed in Dewey believed hewas witnessing a revolution be- greater depth and with greater comprehensionthan did cause religious belief, he thought, would collapse before Arnold. Suffice it tosay here that to be liberally edu- the advance of the scientific method. cated, to be prepared to meet and "The growth of shape the world of this knowledge and of its methods andtests has been such century and the next, every student needsto grasp the as to make acceptance of these [religious) beliefs principles of scientific inquiry, increas- the key insights of scien- ingly onerotp andeven impossible for large numbers of tific research, and the variouslanguages that science cultivated men and women."6 As speaks. far as Dewey could see, the culture of American intellectuals increasingly A common fallacy of educationalthinking asserts that removed itself from a liberal education is synonymous with the any belief in God. I think there is humanities. much truth in the description Deweyhas offered. Nothing could be further from thetruth. As Giamatti At the basis of the scientific undertaking stated a decadeago, is a commitment to a "paradigm"a commitment whichitself is not a liberally educated mind Ls preciselyone that scientifically provenor even probable. This fundamen- has composed itself sufficientlyto experience tal point has been made abundantlyclear by Thomas the thrill, the deeply satisfying,rousing excite- Kuhn, Ludwig Wittgenstein andothers. lf, then, we take ment, of seeing a mathematical solutionmove the view that only whatcan be scientifically proven is to the same kind of inevitable, economicalful- worthy of our assent andcan justifiably ground our fillment of itself as doesa great sonnet; one that behavior, then science itselftheundertaking so much can derive the same pleasure from discerning admired by Dewey and proposed byhim as a substitute and absorbing the nature ofa pattern in matter for religious faithis itselfa religion. And there are as in a painting or in mai ket behavior; thatcan reasons to doubt that this modern form of faith ispower- find the same satisfaction in applyingthe ful enough and rich enoughto replace the motivating results of technological experimentsas in ap- force of Christian religionas our ultimate and time- plying any other kind ofknowledge, for the tested paradigm. betterment of humankind. Theimagination, Perhaps the quasi-faith commitmentthat the scientific the capacity to discoveror impose a new shape method presupposes is thereason why the pervasive with the mind, is theprovince of science as religious alienationamong the well-educated recorded much as of any other form of humaninvestiga- in studies reaching backto 1913 in this country is tion, And the power of the imaginationis final- registered lessamong scientists such as physicists and ly the enerp tapped andtransformed by an chemists than among other intellectualelites, particular- education.' ly social scientists and,ironically, humanists, Theprac- titioners of the hard sciences, thatis, the very people I conclude that an essentialpart of a liberal education who have had first-hand in this century must be experience of the fruitfulness an introduction to the methods of the scientific paradigm,are today less sanguine than and principal discoveries ofmodern science. Following Dewey about its ability and role, this line of thinking, The limited realm we ask professional educators to within which science bears its embrace the liberal spirit. Many splendid fruit may be corporate and in- inadequate to guide and motivateus through the haz- dustrial leaders have recentlyunderscored the critically ardous maze of our lives, important roles that should be playedby the study of Pope John Paul II has frequently the humanities,At this university, called fim a dialogue we believe that between faith and culture. Theoiclinliy Catholic, the professionals educated ina liberal spirit will be leaders ol linary priest or bishop or of their professions. even theologian, does not know enough of modern intellectualculture to sustain Third, hoklre these observations about thepurpose and content a meaningful dialogue with scholarson contemporary education embodied distinctivelyat a poetry, on social history and ethnography, Catholic university? Over 50 on deconstruc- years ago, John Dewey tion in literary criticism,on ricterminism in biology or devoted his three Terry Lecturesto the relationship feminist theory in literature, between religious belief and on causahty in subatomic American culture. Dewe physics or electro-optics,on the latest thinking in the described an increasingly intenseopposition be',.wcei sociology of knowledge and the religious convictions that had the limits of artificial intel- been an integralpart ligence and expert systems.7But in a Catholic university of Western culture fortwo millennia and the rapid rise we have scholars who understand thesefields andac- of a new epistemology of science.The conflict had, in his tivities, and who are committed view, produced a "revolution as well to the Catholic in the seat of authority." intellectual tradition. Therefore, Now more than ever, Dewy claimed, the nit )st important task there was within that a Catholic university performsis to be an intellec- American culture "butone sure road of access to truth tually rigorous community the road of patient cocperative in and through whichcon- inquiry operating by temporary culture meets reflectivefaith. What means of observation, experiment, recordand_control- differentiates a Catholic led reflection"namely, the university from any state scientific method.' university is not thatone has free discourse and the other

33 35 does not. "The difference lies with the kinds of questions mitment to liberal education has brought togetherdedi- that are given priority and thekind of knowledge that is cated faculty from the schools and the college to seek judged molt worth having."' Our Catholic character ways to graduate students who enjoy morethan a mem does not lib primarily in our campus ministry or our acquaintance with the liberal arts. Conversation and liturgical celebrations, though they grace our life appreciation across disciplines, perhaps drawing together in special ways. The Catholic character of this strength from Marianist tradition, foster a degree of university lies first in the sorts of questions to which we community which is instantly recognized by every visit- give priority. And, of course, those questions arise out ing accreditation team. You are a faculty of great of our deepest commitments and convictions as faculty. strength and unusual harmony. And what are these commitments, these convictions? You, our faculty, are genuinely committed to research "Deep within the Catholic tradition is the conviction that and teaching, and dedicated to the total education of our human dignity and worth before God transcend all students. On both the graduate and undergraduate considerations of wealth or competitive skills or ac- levels, students enjoy unusual opportunities for col- complishments, that the main purpose of law and struc- laboration with you in research at the cutting-edge of tures in society is to protect and sustain personsand not your disciplines. And you have associatedyourself into property, to promote community and not exclusivity." work-groups the warmth and luster of which attract Deeply ingrained in our tradition is "the sense that excellent new faculty. cooperation is a more basic and more compreheniive Brother Fitz's leadership in the planning process and category of human relationship than competition."' his personal example, along with the contributions of When he received the Marianist Award here in other academic leaders, have produced a shared vision January 1989, Fr. Walter Ong stated that if scholarship and a striking degree of coherence. "is truly Catholic, it will seek to understand the whole We are bleued with a deep and diverse religious of actuality. It will keep itself moving on a quest which tradition from which we can freely and usefully draw in is impossible to realize entirely but which is promising all of our intellectual endeavors. In reaching for greater always, and often exhilarating." At its very best, the academic excellence, our Marianist traditions keep us Catholic intellectual tudition draws upon both reason focused on community, service, and our commitment to and faith, and assumes that the sharpening of the intel- every one of our students, thereby avoidingindividual- lect deepens one's belieA. It opposes, M a word, all forms ism, careerism, and elitism. of reductionism. It seeks instead to grasp reality as a As a comprehensive university, we provide educa- wit% Ile, never excluding the spiritual, the communal, or tional opportunities for our students both in the tradi- the cosmic. tienal disciplines and in the professions. We enjoy Fourth and finally, what are the strengths, the distinc- greater diversity than if we were only a college and tive qualities of our own university? All that I have greater lexibility than if we were only a research univer- already said comes together here to describe the real sity. Our campus is beautiful, its setting attractive and strengths of the University of Daytoa. Consider the the facilities well kept (or scheduled for imminent following: This university's academic reputation has renovation). grown rapidly in the past ten years. Its faculty andstaff We stand, I believe, at a threshold. We have the oppor- r4re recognized for excellence in research, not on'y na- tuniv, if we use our resources wisely, to focus our tionally but internationally as wel'. Our commitmcnt to misgon more sharply, and commit ourselves to the a well-thought-out general education programfr,r all Feat exigencies of our profession as educators, truly to our undergraduates has been recorazednational) and become a great comprehensive Catholic university. supported by sevei al generous grants. Our shared com-

1. A. Ba tlett Giamatti, Free and Ordered Space, (New York and Lor Jon: Cross/' AMMO (September 1, 1880). W.W. Norton and Company, 1988), 127-128. 6. Ibid. 2. John Henry Newman, The Idea of Univervity, Discourse VII, edit xl 7. Ibid. by Martin J. Svaglic, (South Bend, University of Noise Dame Preis, I986), 134435. 8. Buckley, "Research Across the Disciplines" in In All Things, edited by Robert Daly (Sheed and Ward. 1990), 210. 3. 'President's Message," Liberal Education (March/April, 1 "?'...4.0. 9. Mciika Hellwig, "Reciprocity and Vision, Values and Com- Giamatti, 148-149. munity," in The Catholic Church and American Cult Iffe, edited by Casten 5. Michael J. Buckley, SJ, "Education Marked With the Sign of the Yuhaus (Paullst Press, 1990), 82.

34 ANNUAL MEETING PAPERS

The folkiwing five papers were given at the ACCU 1991 Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, at which time the tenth Theodore M. Hesburgh, CSC, award was presented to Walter J. Ong, SJ, of Saint Louis University. The Catholic Imagination and The Catholic University

Andrew M. Greeley

I will suggest tonight that it is a role of the Catholic The theory can be stated in the following premises: university (in which I would include the Catholic under- 1)Religion begins in (1) experiences which renew graduate college) to reflect on the Catholic imaginative hope, these experiences are in turn encoded in (2) im- tradition.It is a very modest suggestion.I do not say ages or symbols which become templates for action, are that this is the only role of the Catholic university or its shared with others through (3) stories which are told in most important role or a role that is unique to it. Nor do (4) communities and celebrated in (5) rituals.This I suggest that it is a function of a Catholic university to model is a circle, not a straight line, and hence the stories, contribute to the continuation and enlargement of the communities, and rituals in their turn influence hope Catholic imagination, though I presume that such a renewal experiences. contribution would almost inevitably happen in a en- Because we are reflective creatures we must reflect on vironment where there was rigorous and scholarly our imaginative religion. Because we are creatures who reflection on the Catholic imaginative heritage and /or belong to communities which have heritages we must the creative exercise of it.Finally I do not suggest that critique our imaginative religion to make sure that it is such reflection and creation is not occurring on Catholic within what the community has traditionally taken to be campuses. Whether it is or is not is an empirical question its boundaries. Creeds, catechisms, theological systems, about which you would know more than I do. even teaching authorities are an inevitable and essential AU that I am saying is that when one wanders on to a result of reflection on and critique of experiential Catholic campus one would expect to find among other religion. I do not want to deny the importance of intel- things a propensity to reflect with appropriately intellectual religion.I am merely saying that religion takes lectual rigor (depending on the Tecific activity in- its origins and its raw power from experiences, images, volved) on the Catholic imaginative heritage. Or if one stories, community, and ritual and that most religious comes upon a campus which has enough Catholics on socialization (transmission) takes place through natl.& its faculty to please the Vatican and there is no reflection tive before it takes place in non-fiction. Religion must on the Catholic imaginative heritage, then one might be intellectual but it is experiential before it is intellec- well wonder whether this campus has any right to be tual. called Catholic. Jesus was a story teller; the parables are the essential To tip my hand just a little I would add, perhaps sotto Jesus, they share with us Jesus's experience of the voce, that to reflect on the imaginative heritage is to generous, hope-renewing love of the Father in heaven reflect on what is in the raw and primordial sense the (who, be it noted, in the stories of Jesus loves with a essence of Catholicism. Catholic poetry antedates and mother's forgiving tenderness as much as she loves with exceeds Catholic prose. a father's vigorous protection). To achieve my purpose I will outline my theory of the The Jewish tradition is passed on especially in the Catholic imagination and then suggest, very tentatively, stories of the Holidays and the Passover. The Catholic some ways in which reflection on this imagination tradition is passed on especially in the stories of Christmas might occur on the American Catholic campusagain and the Christian Passover. Maybe half our heritage is note the modesty (perhaps finally only apparent) of this transmitted to children around the crib at Christmas latter effort. My suggestions will timeand especially in the wonderfully mysterious ex- be tentative, illustrative, and surely non-exhaustive. planation of the Incarnation to little kids that Mary is God's mommy. 2) The analogical or Catholic imagination, to sum- Father Greeley is a faculty member m the Department of Sociology at the marize and simplify Tracy, emphasizes the preF ence of University of Arizona and mea rill associate nt the National Clpinion Research God in the world. It perceives the world and its creatures Center at the University of Chicago. and relationships and social structures as metaphors,

36 494

sacraments of God, hints of what God is like.I often great theologian Edvard is, but about the importance of illustrate the theory by noting that Catholics have angels religious images he understands very little. Onenever and saints and souls in purgatory and statues and apologizes for Christmas. stained glass windows and holy water, andan institu- 4) Like all symbol and narrative systems, the Catholic tional church which itself is thought to bea sacrament. imaginative tradition is dense, polyvalent, multilayered. Protestant denominations, on the other hand, either do Its logic is poetic rather than deductive. Onecan find not have his imagery or do not put so much emphasis different and even contrasting cues in it dependingon on it. The Catholic imagination is defined by the practice the experience of family life (for example) with which of devotion to Mary the Mother of Jesus. To fall backon one approaches it or the different ideological biases one the mother tongue, ubi est Maris, thE est ecclesia cathalica. seeks to confirm (consider to howmany different uses One side leans to the direction of immanence, the the symbol and the story of Mary the Mother of Jesus other leans in the direction of transcendence. Which is have been put). In general however, the Catholic im- better? Neither. Which is necessary? Both. aginative heritage has enormous appeal ("oncea The analogical and the dialectical imaginationsare not Catholic, &ways a Catholic") because at its bestmo- mutually exclusive. No individual is compietolypos- ments it tends to be warm, supportive, filled with sessed by one or the other,nor does any denomination wonder and affection, and grateful for the goodness of or group have a monopoly on one or the other. The two nature and human relationships (their "sacramentality" imaginations represent propensities, tendencies,em- if you wish). "Wherever the Catholic sun does shine/ there phases, or in the lexicon of myown discipline modest is music, laughter, and gomi red wine./ At least I've but statistically significant correlations. always found it so/Benedicamus Ckominio." My sociological research confirms the theory of the Most Catholics like being Catholic. They do notwant analogical imagination. In twelve countries, Catholics to give up their Catholicismthe experiences, the im- and Protestants do have different images of reality ages, the stories, the communities, and the rituals of their which are encoded in different images of God. Catholics precognitive heritage, and in fact most of them don't do indeed tend to picture creation and human societyas give it up, come what may. metaphors for God. The Catholic religious experience The defection rate of those whowere born Catholic does tend to be sacramental (or incarnational), Catholic and who no longer define themselvesas Catholic is symbols are indeed analogicalor metaphorical, Catholic today 15 percent in this country, precisely what itwas stories tend to be comedy, the Catholic community thirty years ago. Having done all in theirpower to drive tends to be structured and organic (in Durkheim'ssense the lay people out of the church in those thirtyyears of the word), and Catholic rituals tend to be celebratory. there is nothing left that the Catholic leadershipcan do 3) Thus a young Catholic growingup absorbs cues which will drive them out. Presumably they will keep about his religious tradition frommany different sour- trying. ces and in many different forms. Formal religious in- 5) This fact brings me to my final premise:In any struction, the writing of theologians, and the conflict between propositional Catholicism, whether pronouncements of the Vatican are among the voices imposed by theologians, liturgists and religious s/he hears, but these largely propositional voicesare educators on the one hand or the teaching authorityon heard long after the more imaginative and, ifyou will, the other, and imaginative Catholicism, the latter will poetic voices of parents, family, neighbors, parish cler- win going away. Mind you, propositional religion is gy, and local community. The Catholic imaginative essential because we are reflective beings. Hence, theol- heritage is transmitted to ayoung person usually in ogy, liturgical theory, and religious oducation as well as great part before the person encountersany formal the corrective judgments of the teaching authorityare religious educationand cannot be undone by such necessary (as they would be in any community shaped religious education. by a heritage) to critique and reflectupon experiential This is not a particularly.wolutionary notion. If you and imaginative religion. Nonetheless thesenecessary leave aside for a moment ti ligion classes in which reflective behaviors, if they are toserve any useful pur- you learned or which you have taught and reflecton pose, must be carried on with awareness that the origins your own absorption of Catholicism you will, I think, and raw power of religionare to be found in the poetic acknowledge that it was aprocess something like the rather than the prosaic dimension of the self. one I have described: You heard the poetry before you It would be well if all the propositional teacherson learned the prose. You had listened to the stories before both the left and the right would understand thedepth, you encountered the institution (for whichyou may the antiquity, the tenacity, and the appeal of the heritage want to add "Thank God!") with which they often try to mess. My friend Father Edvard Schillebecyx admits ruefully The classic confrontation between propositional in a long autobiographic interview that his first Catholicism and imaginative Catholicism inrecent years memories of Catholicism are of thescene around the focused on the issue of maritalsex and birth control. The Christir is crib. He apologizes for that experience.A teaching authority in effect said that erotic pleasure

37 between husband and wife could be justified only if in a context, first of all, of awareness of the tradition and, procreation was a possibility. Married people knew that secondly, of respect for it. the erotic love of husband and wife was sacramental Catholicism was not born in 1965. (most would not have used the word) and that God My theory, like all social science theories, is a model approved of it. They understood as the Vatican did not for examining reality, a tentative and provisional how important such love is binding a man and woman description of it with no claims to either uniqueness or together and healing the wounds of the common life. exhaustiveness. It is subject to modification and revision Given a choice between what the teaching authority said when it is tested against new data. on this subject and what their own Catholic instincts told To summarize this model:a distinctive Catholic them about the sanctity of married sex, they chose the religious culture extends beyond the boundaries of in- latter, confident that God would understand. stitutional religious propositions, a Catholic poetry Many liturgists and religious educators assume (as which is wider, richer, and deeper than Catholic prose, does the presently reigning pope) that the Catholic laity a powerful and pervasive symbol system (pace Clifford are spirit-less and grace-less victims of materialism, in- Geertz) which purports to offer ultimate explanations in dividualism, secularism, consumerism, and the rest of narrative form for creation and for human life and death. the demons of the contemporary Catholic elites and This culture or, if you wish, subculture may be pictured must be fashioned into Christians by being forced to as a repertory of images for giving names to the? learn a new vocabulary and jumping through various phenomena of human life.It exists only partially in liturgical and instructional hoops. Since the laity want most individuals and communities and perhaps perfect- the sacraments they'll play these games but will prompt- ly in few or none. It is not absolutely unique and coexists ly forget what they have been taught when the games with strains of other religious subcultures, many of are over. which it subsumes.Yet it is different, if not totally Some clergy and some Catholic architects impose on different, and Catholics name reality differently, though the laity (who must pick up the tab) so-called "liturgi- not totally differently, than do others. cally correct" parish churches which "don't .Jok like One can prove by statistical analysis, I believe, that Catholic churches" (according to the lay folk) but do there is this rich, dense, complex, and appealing look very much like Quaker meeting halls. In thc ab- Catholic religious culture. One can speculate, with solid sence of stained glass windows, stations of the cross, grounds I believe, that this heritage is wider, deeper, and vigi'. lights, the crucifix, and, above all, Mary and the far more powerful than any propositional statement of saints, such a church will almost surely turn off lay it. One can also reasonably speculate that the heritage is people who will depart in droves for parishes which passed on informally in small group contexts long have churches which do look Catholic. before propositional religious socialization begins. I fail to understand why it is necessary to eliminate the Finally, one can suggest with considerable persuasive- imagery of the Catholic past. I do not believe that such ness that the Catholic religious imagination is the matrix imagery is incompatible with quality contemporary art. .. ,d the context for virtually all Catholic ministerial and In such controversies (and they are endemic in the pastoral work. church today) neither liturgist nor architect display any But we can only guess in our present state of knowledge sense of the richness or the strength of the Catholic about the shape of this culture, the relative importance imaginative tradition as it is incarnated in the laity. in it of the various stories and rituals and symbols, and What the hell is wrong with statues of the saints and the poetic logic which provides it with organization and Herself? After all she does represent the womanliness structure. We can study high culture for hints of the of God, does she not? shape and the metaphorical logic of this tradition, so Indeed at a more general level, it often seems that in long as we understand that high culture! is more revela- their contempt for the ordinary faithful many Catholic tion of a slice of the Catholic imaginative heritage in a elites are utterly unaware of the ancient, appealing, and given time and place (and among members of a given p..!rvasive religious culture in which the faithful live.It group, like Italian American film makers for example) takes a certain kind of blindness to ignore such an ob- than it is a force in shaping that heritage. Dante did vious and enormous culture, but those who would indeed shape some of the development of the Catholic reduce a religious tradition to its institutional and imaginative heritage with his vision of Purgatory (a propositional manifestations have already donned their story which somehow we seem to have abandoned late- blinders. ly, just at the time that the makers of films like "Flat Obviously the imaginative tradition requires different Liners," "Ghost," "Always," and "Jacob's Ladder" have tools of reflection in this era than it did in past eras. Just discovered itto say nothing of D.M. Thomas in his as obviously it must be reexamined so that is can grow novel The White Hotel). However, more importantly he and expand (my thesis indeed is that the Catholic cam- revealed one segment of that culture at a particular point pus is one of the locales for such growth and expansion). in human history. He was a sacrament of the heritage. But both reflection and reexamination must take place The tools of modern social science enable us to create

38 4o a road map, a respectful road map I hasten to add, of the Similarly the saints, whose lives as Ken Woodward Catholic imaginative heritage cis it exists todayamong has recently pointed out in his Making Saints,are stories the lay people of God. Such a research effort would be of God's love, are marvelous material for both classroom both very difficult and not unsurprising if foundon a instruction and for scholarly research. I note that the campus which iays claim to being Catholic. leading publisher of lives of the saints today is the This suggestion is an appropriate transition frommy University of Chicago Press and that the first book sketch of a theory of the Catholicor sacramental or which attempted computer analysis of medieval saints analogical or incarnational imaginative heritageto five (and with considerable success)was written not by a suggestions of how one might reflect on this heritage in faculty member of a Catholic university but bymy col- a Catholic college or university. league Don Weinstein of the University of Arizona. 1) The most obvious kind of reflection is that which 3)I would also propose for reflection the traditional once seemed to exist in super-abundance on the Catholic Catholic social theory, outlined by Aquinas, developed campus, research about and courses on the high culture in the last century by such Jesuit scholarsas Liberatore component of the Catholic imaginative heritage"His- and Taparelli and in this century by Oswaldvon Nell- tory of Catholic Art," "Nineteenth Century Catholic Breuning, and expounded by Popes Leo XIII and Pius Poets," "Recent Catholic Fiction," "French and English Xl. This theory with its emphasison society as an or- Catholic Novelists of the First Half of the TwentyCen- dered and cooperative system, like Dante's Commedia,is tury," "Current Catholic Film Makers" (I think of Lee more the result of an underlying Catholic imagination Lourdeux's wonderful book on the Catholic ethnicin- than the cause of it. Poetry again shapesprose much fluence on Capra, Ford, Coppola, and Scorcese). more than the reverse. The Catholic imagination sees I have the impression that the Catholic college usedto human society as a sacrament, however flawed, of God's be proud to offer such courses andnow is often just a love and therefore seeksa third way between Hobbesian little ashamed to offer them. Perhapsmy impression individualism and Marxist collectivism. Thecore of this wrong. Catholic theory is the principle of subsidiaritynothing Or let me put it a little differently in two rhetorical done by a higher or larger organization thatcannot be questions to Father Buckley. Could ayoung person done as well by a loweror smaller one. The Catholic really claim to have had a Catholic, tosay nothing of a social theory was once well understoodon Catholic Jesuit, education if s/he has not read and reflectedon campuses but for the least twenty-five years has been and perhaps even committed tomemory Hopkins' May replaced by the collectivism of liberation theologyor the Magnificat? Or should it be possible to attenda univer- big government approach of those who write the sity whow Marian name is celebrated (by the Fighting bishops' pastorals. The principle of subsidiarity iscited Black Baptists) every Saturday afternoon in autumn by the latter only to justify governmentintervention without having been exposed to the possibility ofa without any regard to its implications for decentraliza- course on the art and symbolism of Mary the Mother of tion of control. Jesus? Now that the gods of Marxism have collapsed withthe Considering the extraordinary good fortune of the falling Berlin wall (I suspect that the last Marxistin the Fighting Black Baptists on a number of Saturday after- world will be a Catholic priest with tenurearguably noons this last year, it would seem to me that sucha Jesuitdoggedly teaching liberation theologyat a course would be a matter of gratitude if not of strict Catholic university), it might be appropriateto begin justice. Mr. Holz and company certainly kept thepoor again to reflect on a communitarian social theory which woman busy. advocates decentralization instead of centralizationand 2) Hence the second reflection I would suggestas a which is rooted in a vivid imaginative pictureof human possibility would be on Mary and the saints. TheMary society as sacramental. stor. is, if not tiw privileged symbol (in Paul Ricoeur's The Catholic social theory is nothingmore than a sense of the term) of the poetic logic of Catholicism, at formalized and generalized articulation of theinstinc- least a privileged symbol, a key to understandingthe tive response of those in the grip of the Catholic imagina- whole system. Those elites who concentrateon the tion. The politician who believes that politicalpower propositional and institutional elements of the Catholic ultimately grows, not out of a barrel ofa gun, but out of tradition on the right have turned the Marystory to dry voting decisions in the precincts hasan organic image of dogma or sweet saccharin andon the left have ignored society even if he does not know the word. The good the Mary story altogether in the fervent hope thatit precinct captain and the good parish priest havethe would go away. Bothresponses to the Mother of Jesus, same image of social actionone must be outon the I would suggest, are perilousnot to the Madonnawho streets listening more than talking, out with the people is alive and well but to the elites. If one does not under- in the smallest units of society in those places wheremen stand the most powerful religious narrativein fifteen and women live, love, raise their children,reconcile, centuries of Christian history, one understands nothing worship, and die. at all about Catholic:Lin. 4) This observation points to another possibleareafor

f 39 reflectionthe unique American Catholic experience of the parish and parochial schools) and the presence of immigration into the neighborhood parish, surely one creative artists and writers on campusnone of these of the most extraordinary forms of community that are obligations for the Catholic university which wants human ingenuity has ever discovered; within the neigh- to promote reflection of the Catholic imagination. They borhood parish the parochial school is one of the most are rather opportunities. The last five would be oppor- effective techniques for generating and supporting local tunities even if you reject completely my theory of the community that humankind has ever used. These are Catholic imagination. empirical generalizations and not merely personal Incidentally, none of them would require new build- opinions by the way. Yet the American Catholic elites ings or laboratories or substantial financial outlays, save for the last five decades have reflected on everyone perhaps for the empirical research on the Catholic im- else's experience but their ownFrench, German, agination itself. But even the last would cost relatively Dutch, Latin American. I am not suggesting that we little. Moreover, I suspect that the courses which would should lose interest in other manifestations of flow from such emphases on the Catholic campus Catholicism but only that it would be useful to also be would attract large numbers of students and that interested in our own. Moreover it is almost a require- scholars in these fields would pay for themselves merely ment for admission into the elites to contemn the from instructional fees. parochial s-...hool. My illustrative examples are from the social sciences I am aware of jay Dolan's first rate historical work on and the humanities, the areas which I know best. But it the parish, but if there is any other high quality research would seem to me that both the cosmological issues with on the development of parishes I do not know of it. I am, which my Jesuit colleagues at the University of Arizona I think, pretty well informed about research on Catholic wrestle and the leading edge biological issues about the schools, and none of it is being done on Catholic cam- organism directing its own evolution also provide inter- puses. There are a few chairs of urban or ethnic or labor esting possibilities for Catholic instruction and scholar- history, but not very many. A couple of years ago I ship. recommended to a president of a Catholic university a My suggestions for a role (not the role) of Catholic very distinguished specialist in the literature of the colleges and universities are, as I said before, modest American Irish. "We already have an ethnic historian," much less grandiose than the vision of the rather dreary he vplied. One apparently was enough. and tiresome document the Vatican has recently As in the other areas I recommend for reflection on the produced and surely much more modest than some of Catholic imagination, I not only mean to imply that a the claims made by Catholic administrators for their Catholic University has to have more than one ethnic institutions. historian. Rather, I would have thought that it wanted While modest, though, my suggestions may have the more. merit of being feasible. 5) If religion is image and story before it is anything Am I daring to suggest that the sociologist is more else and if Catholicism has the richest imaginative tradi- important than the theologian, the college professor, tion of any of the religions of the Holy One, then one and, heaven save us, the bishop. Rather I am saying that might expect to find artists, poets, and writers in all are equally unimportant (though still equally neces- residence on the Catholic campusmen and women sary) when compared with the poet, the artist, the story who would manifest concretely how the religious im- teller, the mystic, tilt? saint. agination works. I note that Jon Hassler, whose fiction Those of us who work in whatever form with the is now witionally recognized, is writer in residence at institution and the proposition must finally realize that Saint John's University hi Minnesota. There are I am while our slice of the pie is critical, it is not comprehen- sure other such, though I am unaware of them. I also sive, and that we can no longer afford to ignore the rest note that Seamus Heaney was at Harvard and Cezlaw of the pie. The prose writer must listen to the poet. The Milosz at Berkeley. The chance of there being an Irish institutional leader and the theologian must listen t, American Heaney or a Polish American Milosz would each other and to the story teller. be enhanced if students could bnish shoulders with The request is the final modesty. All one asks of the such men and women. prose writers or the professors or the bishops or the The shape and structure of the Catholic imagination, university presidents or the lords of the curial Catholic high culture, Mary and the saints, the Catholic dicasteries or the liturgists or the architects or the social theory, the specifically American dimension of the religious educators is that they listen. Presumably none Catholic experience (which would include especially of us will hold our breath until this happens. The Church and its Responsibilityto Foster Knowledge

Michael J. Buckley, SJ

Father Greeley has given an insightful and eloquent that creation is a gift? Does thissense of gift not mean appeal for reflection upon things Catholicfora retrieval that we should pay attentioneven in the most dis- within the Catholic universities of the richness of the ciplined and serious mannerto what God has Catholic symbolic experience.I can only second his ap- entrusted to us?2 Has not the church insisted since the peal. But the task that Alice Gal lin and Tim O'Meara have attack of Manichaeism that the world is good and that assigned me bears upon a different question,one that Mr. matter and history are the stuff of salvation? Does not O'Meara framed in this manner: Should the church foster creation give obvious importance and evena religious learning that is on the face of it secular? More specifically, dimension to the work of science? And has all of this should the church encourage, yes,even nurture as part of not been repeated a thousand times! its own mission research into the physical and biological Let me counter with agreement and disagreement. sciences? This question could obviously be extended fur- There is something generically true about sucha therinto the social sciences, the professiom of law, busi- responsebut that constitutes its fatal flaw and theeasy ness, and medicine, even the humanitiesbut 45 minutes deceptiveness about the response. It offersus a comfort- demands that I limit my compass. Father Greeley has able journey down what RS. Crane called "the high argued the thesis that the Catholic universitymust foster priori road"; i.e., as..aming the relevance and authority things Catholic. Mr. O'Meara's questioncomes almost by of theoretic doctrines pril to the examination ofcon- way of complementary counterpoint: Should the church crete issues and evidence.It does explain why Chris- as such be vitally engaged in the knowledge that is neither tianity has exhibited a pervasive sympathy fornature intrinsically Catholic nor immediately religious? and for the disciplines with which it is explored. But this explanation remains at a level so abstract that it doesnot I. THE SPECIFICATION OF THE touch our actual issues as they have emerged in the QUESTION crises withinstory, nor does it reach the level of obligation"should the church"at whichour question has Let me spend some initial moments in specifying this been posed. To be satisfied with it is to be informed by question. Mr. O'Meara has not asked if the Catholic neither recent history nor current concrete Catholic university precisely as a university should foster the practice. physical and biological sciences. Theanswer to such a Can any Catholic recall without blushing, for example, question would be obviousif the institution wishesto the papal brief on Darwinism: "A system,"wrote Pius be a university. Rather the issue is whether the church, IX, "which is repugnant at once to history,to the tradi- precisely as such, should foster these sciences. Is there tion of all peoples, to exact science, to observed facts, and something about the nature and mission of the Christian even to reason herself would seem to need no refutation, community that underscores those obligations incum- did not alienation from God and the leaningto bent upon the university as such, something about the materialism, due to depravity, eagerly seeksupport in church which uniquely supports thecommon respon- all this tissue of fables."4 Does not thesame shame rise sibilities of higher education and which wouldgive when one recalls that the works of Copernicus and added meaning and warrant to the remarkable proposi- Galileo remained on the Index of Forbidden Books intothe tion of the present pope that the church needs the nineteenth century? Can we not remember that the university.' volumes of Teilhard de Chardinwere ordered removed But is the answer to such a question nota banality? Do from the shelves of Catholic libraries withinour own not the dogmatic commitments of the church emphasize life-time? All of this is common knowledge,so common that it undermines something of the credibilityof the Father Buckley Pi profe,,or of plaiosophii. theolott. and of the historyand phaloi40, w tlent e at the thaver.aty of Notre Dame church and feeds the extravagant myth ofan inherent antagonism between science and religion.Each year

4 freshmen courses in Western Civilization retrace some- secular counterparts with the efforts of American thing of this path laid by some religious leadership. But universities to deny the dangerous doctrines of Profes- not just freshmen! Are Catholic university presidents sor Shockley a hearing or with the unspoken demand unaware that at the very end of the last century, the first for politically correct opinions, or with the estab- president of Cornell University, Andrew Dickson White lishment as departmental orthodoxies a particular ver- [1832-19181, compiled case after case of such repression sion of analytic philosophy or literary criticism, or with in his massive 1896 work A History of the Warfare of the prolonged unwillingness even to entertain the Science with Theology in Christendom? original theories of Alfred Wegener about plate tec- Science in abstracto and science in the day-by-day tonics. The problem is a profoundly human one, not the church has a long history of positive affirmations exclusively an ecclesial one. But our ecclesial history ranging from benignity to significant assist; but the great does furnish added weight to our question: Should the revolutionary changes in science have sometimes met church as such encourage and foster all genuine and misunderstanding, resistance, and even repression ethical scientific inqu:ry no matter where it seems to be not just by church leaders, but by theologians and tending? I say "ethical" deliberately because I am con- manualists. Perhaps the key here is "misunderstand- cerned in these remarks with dogmatic compatibility, ing." These moments were often the result not of vi- not with the more technological uses or experimental ciousness or politicsthough this could not be inquiries of science that raise serious questions of extended to the Galileo fiascobut to an intractable morality and ethics. narrowness, an ignorant misreading, a positive But our question is sharpened still further if we con- paranoia before novelties which were equated with sider the present attacks on science within American threat: "Nihil innovetur nisi quod traditum est," was higher education, attacks that issue from the challenge easily extended to the constitution of the world and the of deconstructionism, that are mounted in the name of nature of its origins.But here the paradox becomes egalitarian leveling of all "logocentric hierarchies," that more acute. The heliocentric universe was condemned are embodied in what is present and what is omitted in by some theologians and ecclesiastic authorities not be- the current university conflicts over a canon of ap- cause they failed to understand Copernicus, Kepler or propriate texts or the content of a core curriculum.6 All Nev 'ton, but because they failed to understand the Book of this makes Mr. O'Meara's question more real: Why of Judges or the accommodation principles of Thomas should the church, even before pockets of academic Aquinas. Fear arose about evolution because ecclesias- indifference or hostility, encourage and support a pas- tics like Henry Edward Cardinal Manning judged it "a sion for scientific inquiry? brutal philosophyto wit, there is no God, and the ape is our Adam."5 It was often a decadent theology and II. THESIS 1 barren philosophy that constructed these artificial an- tinomies or which failed to mediate between the gospel As a response, I should like to advance two +heses: (1) and the developing culture. Here, as often as not, the In one way or another, contemporary scientific inquiry issue lay not so much with the new sciences as with a raises serious questions about ultimacies and so con- theologically sound understanding of the basic stitutes part of the present religious problematic; (2) The patrimony of the church that alone could make novelties scientific passion for the truth about the world is a part welcome and mediation possible. of that general passion for truth that makes faithany So the questionif it is not to be a banalitycan be vital faithpossible. One of my theses deals with honed more precisely.Should the church, as such, science as a body of knowledge, as a content; the other foster science, science even at its most inventive mo- deals with it as a method or procedure and a habit of ments, science when its conclusions seem raw or when mind. Let me explore each of them in the time that has it opens a frontier that seems to contradict what has been been allotted to me. accepted even as dogma, when a synthesis has not been Over the past 30 years, the relationship between the made between faith and science in this new area of physical sciences and the religious dimensions of life has inquiry? It is not simply obvious that the church should radically altered. One can better assess this sea-change foster such knowledge. Nor is it simply regressive to see if it is sten in contrast with the intellectual settlements it undermining the belief of ordinary Catholics. In pur- between science and religion since the dawn of moder- suit of its responsibilities, church authority has looked nity.Drawing these intellectual covenants in very at the concrete effects of such knowledge and sometimes broad brush strokes, I would suggest that these cen- inhibited such research and teaching as "confusing the turies have seen four significantly different relation- faithful." ships: subsumption, separation or isolation, alienation, But one need not become unfair or hysterical over this and correlation. Let me say a shamefully brief paragraph history. The church has contributed enough encourage- to illustrate each. ment to science in general during these centuries, and Subsumption: In the 17th and 18th centuries, natural the caution that ecclesiastics have exhibited can find its philosophy or physics or experimental science was sub-

42 4.. sumed as the foundation for religion, most specifically and alienation andbecause ofour ignorance of his- for the assertion of the existence of God. Certainly this torywere indoctrinated easily to talk about the "an- was the interest that drove much of Isaac Newton, but cient" battle between science and religious. one can also find it at the concerns of such scientific But within our lifetime, this settlement has begunto giants as Robert Boyle and John Ray and in the resultant give way before an unexpected development. Increas- physicotheologies of William Derham and William ingly, scientists such as P.W. Atkins, Robert K. Adair, Paley. The evidence from physics became those of and Harald Fritzsch find themselves in basicagreement geometrical design and functional subservience, and the with the theoretical physicist, Paul W. Davies: "Rightor mathematics embedded in the universe pointedto a wrong, the fact that science has actually advanced to the universal geometer. Foundational religious reflection point where what were formerly religious questionscan often looked to science for its warrant toassert its fun- be seriously tackled itself indicates the far-reachingcon- damental assertions about God. sequences of the new physics." In fact, Davies claims Separation: Under Laplace and Lagrange, physics and quite flatly:"It may seem bizarre, but inmy opinion, astronomy freed themselves from furnishing foun- science offers a surer path to God than religion."' dations for religious assertions. William 1-4..tschel This is no place to survey the evidence that Davies and recorded the conversation between Napoleon, then first ot:xrs mount, but this much must be said. Theway the consul of France, with M. de Laplaceon August 8, 1802. contemporary world reveals itself in its fundamental The subject was the sidereal heavens, andNapoleon constitution and origins poses or suggestsenormous asked in a tone of admiration: "And who is the author questions of ultimacy, even if (pace Davies) it doesnot of all of this?" Laplace maintained thata series of natural answer them. This is neither unprecedented nor ex traor- causes could account for this phenomenon. "This, the lary; what is extraordinary is the growing recognition First Consul rather opposed." The story has been that this is the case. Any human situation, explored with simplified by having Laplace respond to Napoleon with careful discipline and examined in depth, raisesques- the celebrated retort: "I haveno need of that hypothesis," tions of ultimacy for which the methodology at hand is and then maintaining that Laplace'sastronomy was unequipped. This can occur in twoways: First, it dis- atheistic. That interpretation is false. Laplace is simply closes problems about its own foundations, about the saying, in opposition to Newton's System of the World and validity of its own presuppositions, the reference claims to the "Queries" at the end of Newton's Optics, that that can be made for its axiomatic sets, its postulates, and science was self-contained, that it would not furnish the finally its relationship to other kinds of knowledge. basis for religion.7 The new settlementwas to be be- Second, a thorough scientific inquirymay well establish tween two di!,iinct, isolated, and methodologically in- conclusions which themselves raise further questionsor different fie!,is. hint toward further knowledge which itsown methodol- Al ieno!; on: In the 19th century, the evolutionary ogy cannot responsibly treat. Such an inquiry maysug- theoKes of Darwin and Wallacewere read as eliminating gest possibilities about the universe which itcannot botli the classic argument from designas well as a spe- responsibly explore. It has classically been the function cial place for human consciousness,a consciousness that of metaphysics to deal with the first of thesesets of both philosophers and theologians had madeintegral problems; i.e., to inquire into the foundations of science for the establishment of the existence of God.Many and of mathematics and into the relationship ofone area religious leaders and scientists read this developmentas of knowledge with another.But is it the second in- a fundamental change in the relationship between evitable development of scientific knowledge, theques- science and religion; i.e., asan attack and contradiction. tions about ultimacy and about receding horiz.ons that With such rare exceptionsas John Henry Newman, they it raises, which inevitably involves theinterest of understood it basically as threat. CardinalWiseman religion. For religion, or the disciplined reflectionupon received permission from the Holy Seeto found an religious experience that we can call theology, isessen- academia, one to which he summoned the faithful of tially about the ultimacies, the absolutes that impinge England in these words: "Now it is for t he Church which upon human existence and that elicit a possibility of the alone possesses divine certainty and divinediscern- world embodying mysteriously the personalinter- ment, to place itself at once in the front ofa movement change between the divine and human. which threatens even the fraginentary remainsof Chris- Let me give one ex,;pie:If one looks at the fun- tian belief in England." In his Terry Lectures,John damental constants ot nature,one comes to see the Dewey in the United States announced thatreligkis universe as breath-takingly, unimaginably finely tuned. belief with any supe; natural content couldnot surviv For example, as Stephen Hawking has written, if"the before the surge in the empirical sciences. Duringthe rate of expansion one second after the Big Bang had been important Solvay Conference of 1427, Dirac and Pauli smaller by even one part ina hundred thousand million expressed amazement to Heisenberg that Einsteincould million, it (the material universe) would have recol- evince any respect for religious consciousness .8 Our lapsed before it reached its present size." If,on the other own generations grew up in that atmosphere of hostility hand, the rate of expansion had beenever so slightly greater, the expansion would have been too great for about our world and about our lives. The church can and stars and planets to form. The universe wouldhavebeen must encourage the advance of this knowledge, confi- impossible.1° That fine-tuning can be found in such dent that the reach of the mind will extend into a fundamentals as the mass of the electron, the strength of profoundly religious dimensionthat questions will be the strong nuclear force, the relationship between mat- elicited that the science or the discipline itself cannot ter and anti-matter. This number of such"remarkable resolve. For science in so many different ways mediates coincidences" can admittedly be advanced indefinitely. the world to religious consciousness. As that world Some are using these data, as did Boyle and Newton becomes progressively engagedwhether in molecular to establish an argument for the existence of God. This biology or astrophysics or cosmology or quantum seems to me misguided. But what I do think islegitimate mechanics, it will raise issues not merely about the social not to say hypnotizingis that at the very minimum and ethical implications of what is discoveredmatters they raise the question about purpose and personality of enormous moral interest to the churchbut about the in the universe. Such evidence gives a new basis, a new meaning or purpose in the universe, the pervasiveness plausibility to the question: Is there then mind and of matter, the eschatological destiny of all that we know. purpose, even a care for human beings, atthe basis of The church must foster science as a body of knowledge our existence? because it must engage the religious dimensions of this Now the reaction to this kind of knowledge or recog- selfdisclosure of the world. For such a disclosure through nition among theologians and thinkers within the its questions evokes new insights into the significance of church has been threefold. The vast majority, knowing the gospel and the concrete meaning of the One in whom nothing about science, wary, suspicious or at best and through whom and for whom all things were respecting it at a great remove, are ignorant of these made." developments or of their enormous importance in our We advance in our understanding of the unique Christo- understanding of the world. Consequently, they cannot logical significance of salvation as we understand the appropriate the character or the contours of this world to which Christ is the immeasurable responseas problematic situation that contemporary culture is He is seen to respond to the questions that the physical framing for religious inquiry and responses. The universe and human life pose about existence and second, enthusiastic about this new knowledge, join meaning. those scientists who enlist these data to ground religious Understood in this way, science forms part of the affirmations about the existence and nature of God. This problematic situation for contemporary theology. If the seen.s to me a categorical error, one that minglesdif- church wants the mystery that it bears taken seriously ferent kinds of knowledge and repeats the errors of the and if it wants to come to deeper understanding of this seventeenth century. But the third reaction has been to mystery itself, then the church must foster all those treat this new knowledge in one field as constituting a human engagements in which ultimate questions are set of problems, questions leveled at religion. The cos- uncovered in depth and presented with urgency and mological constantsthe emergence of life, the ap- which cry out for a religious transposition and theologi- pearance of consciousness, expansive if not directional cal reflection. If, on the othe! hand, the church ignores evolutionraise the possibility of profound purpose in these developmentsand how many members of CTSA this universe of some eighteen billion years. or of your theology departments have anythingthat This raises in a very different way the question of could qualify as scientific literacy?then theology loses Godin a new and newly very plausible way. Does not the vitality that this contact with culture can uniquely the church which talks about God and Christ, even the offer. One can advance this first thesis slightly further: cosmic Christ, about providence and salvation, have a If one really understands only the answer itself when way of taking up these issues, transposing them into one has grasped the question--if the responsebecomes properly theological questions and in terms of theologi- clear only as one sees something of what is its fun- cal methodologies and evidence dealing with these in a damental question, then one can ask the church and its way that the physical sciences cannot? It is consequent theologians how much they understand about the upon the mission of the church that it foster, encourage, gospel (i.e., the recapitulation of an things in Christ) and be in vital contact with scientific inquiry not because when they do not see or understand so much of the science will answer the questions of religion, but be- world to which it is response and good news. cause it poses some of them. That is the first thesis I wish to defend: The church For in scientific inquiry, the world progressively dis- must encourage or foster science because science done closes itself. Theological research, investigation, and in- with integrity constitutes something of the problematic struction will only be as vital as the questions they situation which confronts the reflection, yes, even the address. These questions will possess vitality to the self-understanding of the church. degree that they emerge out of life. Science easily constitutes one of the greatest and most continual efforts of the human intellect to push to its ultimate what we know

44 4t; III. THESIS 2 to cognoscitive rigor, nor does it constitute a voluntaris- tic sacrificium intellectus."One would not believe if May I now use the time I still have available to advance she/be did not see that these things were to be believed" a second thesis. Here I do not intend to deal with science 111-11.1 .4. ad 21.You believe something because you as an expanding body of knowledge, but as a habit of believe someone; and you believe someone becauseyou mind issuing in a methodologically selfconscious,exact believe that he/she speaks the truth. Thegrace of faith, and demanding exploration of the world in orderto he says very simply, "makes one see the things thatare determine what is true about it.I take it that this is the b,elieved" 111-11.1.4. ad 31. The content ofyour faith and purpose of science, no matter how different and no the source of your faith are conditioned by this absolute matter how instrumental may be its best available con- or primary commitmentan uncompromising, non-ne- clusions. I take it that this is where the almost hypnotic gotiable commitment to the truth:"nothing can fall appeal of the scientific enterprise lies, whether its effort under faith except so far as it stands under the first be bent on solving problems of tensor calculusor build- truth" 111.11.1.31.It is in this way that faith does not ing a multibillion-dollar super-conducting supercol- contradict intellectual activity, but "brings under- lider, whether it be purely theoretic in its interests in standing to its completion" 111-11.1.3. ad 1 1.Only this subatomic physics or technologically oriented towardF commitment to truth can make authentic faith possible: global warming and space stations. Therecan be au both the commitment of God to its revelation and the addictive appeal in learning what is thecase, what is the surrender of a human being to its absolute primacy.12 solution to a problem, what is the truth about things. I suggest that under that seemingly dry proposition of This dedication constitutes the scientific mindat its Aquinas he is proposing an understanding of Catholic finest. Not just the scientific mind, ofcourse, but the faith that makes the church's encouragement of zealous, scientific habit is one generic form of this dedication,one self-sacrificing science a matter of crucial moment. To of its strongest forms in contemporary culture. evoke authentic faith, the church must foster inevery I am as aware as you of the vanity and the vkious possible way an uncompromising commitmentto the competition, of the ego-investments and financial greed truth, in whatever way it discloses itself. The Christian that can and has entered into this world. But there isat community must give itself to build a world in which its besta best which the church mustencourage and truth is explored, disclosed, and spoken. The church reverencethere is a grandeur, a purity of heiirt,a self- itself must be understoodorcome to be more vitally transcendence that the scientific mind ctills for,a the place where truth is reverenced and demanded and profound orientation towards the truth. In this orienta- spoken. For this openness to the realwhetherone of tion, it seems to me, one encounters the absolute; i.e., that physical nature or of mathematical coherenceor of biologi- which is directive and normative of all life and is itself cal and human naturethis acceptance of what is simp- not governed or subject or relative or dependentupon ly because it is is a fundamental condition for the anything else. This may not necessarilyemerge in the possibility of Christian faith. As this disposition conclusions of the work of the scientist, but the decencies dominates the scientific mindand the churchmust of his or her calling dictate that it be always operative in encourage it to be faithful to itselfas it governs and the uncompromising claim that truth makesupon the directs a person's entire career,as it permeates teaching direction that this work takes. Truth is both the horizon and drives research through difficult, discouraging and towards which the scientist moves and the imperative dogged moments, as it works against the vices and the that directs her or his choices. The scientist,as a scientist, narrowness that make for dishonesy and pretense, as it is called upon to explore what is the case inas imagiaa- counters a defensive unwillingness to face up to theway tive and as disciplined a form as possible and to tell the things are, such a disposition develops in the mind those truth that his research discloses witha disciplined exact- habits which are essential if faith is to be authentic. For itude. the finest reaches of the scientific mind lie inan un- Now, in order to focus my argument at this point, I deviating determination towards the truth; and from the should like to direct your attention to whatmay seem a time of Paul it has been said that the failure in faith is very dry and inconsequential proposition in Thomistic basically a "failure to love the truth and be saved"(2 theology. It is the very first issue that Aquinasraises Thes when he deals with faith. He asks this question: What is It is of vital importance that the churchencourage, the formal object of faith? In other words, what is the demand, propose, or foster every seriousengagement indispensable aspect under whichyou must see what by which human dedication and itsconsequent effort you are asked to believe, that aspect by which something engage itself with an enterprise whose purpose is truth. becomes credible and which entails the inescapable And what must the church ask at thosecrisis-mo- commitment for making an act of faith? And heanswers ments when scientific inquiry and dogmatic assertion this very simply.The foraal object of faith is the seem to clash, when they even appear to contradict? primary, the absolute truth 111-11.1.1 1. Christian faith for That both continue their inquiriesor experiments, their Aquinas is not a blind leap in the dark; it is not opposed discussions and reconsideration without impedimentor

45 4 mutual condemnation, as Cardinal Newman wrote, could well constitute the categorical mediation of silch "with full faith in the consistency of that multiform transcendental revelation and its responding faith.h truth, which they share between them, in a generous confidence that they will be ultimately consistent, one IV. CONCLUSION and all, in their combined results though there may be momentary collisions, awkward appearances and many I have attempted to answer Tim O'Meara's question forebodings and prophecies of contrariety."13 with the two theses that these pages have only been able In my opinion, one could argue even further that this to outline. Each of them needs more development and costly love for truth is not only a disposition for faith but nuance, but the basic point is this: The church must as it becomes absolute and universal constitutes that encourage scientific inquiry as it must care for the sour- universal surrender which Karl Rahner has signaled as ces of its own vitality. It must both foster an undeviating transcendental faith:the obedient acceptance of God determination for the truth wherever this occurs as the revealing Himself as the all-guiding, all-governing only matrix out of which Christian faith can emerge, and truth, permeating all things, giving meaning and urgen- it must further those disciplined inquiries whose natural cy to its smallest participation and confronting one con- dynamism develops into those profound questions or tinually in a relationship of absolute closeness and sugrstlons about ultimacy that constit ate the religious summons. The day-by-day honest drudgery of science dimensions of life and reach towards the unspeakable mystery that is God.

1. Pope John Paul II, "The Church Needs the University," March 8, quarks, and forces, such as gravitational attraction or 1982, L'Osservatore Romano, English edition (3 May 1982), 6. electromagnetic radiation. .. . But like it or not,the natural sciences are perhaps our greatest single intellec- 2. S v the remarks of Ian G. Barbour, Issues in Science and Religion tual achievement as human beings, and any education (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: PrenticeHall, 1966), 44-48. Tlw mat- that neglects this fact is to that extent defective." The New ter tan be framed through a simple parable: If a young man loves a York Review of Books (December 6, 1990), xxxvii:19, 41. wom in, he may show his love by giving her a ring. Now there are many things which the woman can do. The most vicious would be to 7.See Michael J. Buckley, At the, Origins of Modern Atheism (New take the ring and forget the love thia is behind it. That would be the ven: Yale University Press, 1990, paper), 325. most viciousbut it would not be the most stupid. The most stupid thing she could do would be to think that the ring and the man were 8. See Michael J. Buckley, SJ, "Religion and Science: Paul Davies and in competitionthat it was not a sacrament of his love but its competi- John Paul IL" Tlwological Stinnes 51:2 (June I 990), 311-31Z. tionand that somehow or other she could show her love for him be 9.Paul Davies, God and the New Physics (New York: Simon and denigrating the ring: "What a lousy piece of metalonly eight caret Schuster, 1983), ix. diamondhow little worth it has compared with you, honey!" One does not enhance one's relationship with God by despising or ignoring 10. See Ian Bartmur, Religion in an Age of Science. (San Fraiwisco: the gifts that God has given as a pledge of an eternal love. Harper and Row, 1990), 135. 3. R.S. Crane, "Criticism as Inquiry; or, The Perils of the 'High Priori 1 I. Colossians 1:16-17 Road,'" he Idea of the Humanities (Chicago: The University of Chicago 12. St. Thomas is not alone in giving this sacred, religious character to Press, 1967), vol. ii, 29. such a commitment. William James, in defending however success- 4. Cited by Andrew Dickson White, in "The Final Effort of Theology," fully, his description of personal religion insisted that "a man's as in Darwin, selected and edited by Philip Appleman (New York: religion might thus be identified with his attitude, whatever it might W.W. Norton, 19701, 366. These papal briefs are printed in full in Ix% towards what he felt to be the primal truth."I William James, The Constantin James, Mes Entretiens avec EEmpereur Don Pedro me le, ()ar- Varieties of Religions Experience (New York: l'enguin, 1987 - reprinted um:mu' (Paris, 1888), see Danoin, 367. n.2. from the standard edition of Longmans, Green, a nd Co., 1902), chapter 34.1In her autobiography, Simone Weil summarizes what gave 5. Henry Edward Cardinal Manning, Essays on Religwn and Lih,rature meaning to her life:"It seems to me certain, and I still think so today, (London, 1865), as cited in Darwin, 364n1. that one can never wrestle enough with God if one does so out of pure 6. John Searle in his recent "The Battle over the University," noted the regard for the truth. Christ likes us to prefer truth to him because, If one turns aside from him to go general lack of a coherent theory of undergraduate education and before being Christ, he is truth. spoke with amazement of one of the most recent and best attempts to toward the truth, one will not go far before falling into his arms." build such a theory, The Voice of Liberal Learning by the English (Simone Weil, "Spiritual Autobiography," Waiting for God (New York: philosopher Michael Oakeshott: Harper and Row, 1973), 69.1 "Perhaps the biggest single weakness of his conception 13. John Henry Cardinal Newman, "Christianity and Scientific Inves- tigation," The Idea of a University, edited with introduction by I. T. Ker of education is in the peripheral status it assigns to the natural sciences. The natural sciences do notfit his (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), 375. model, because, for the most part, the world of the 14. See Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith. An introduction to natural sciences is not a world of meanings. It is a world the Idea of Christianity, translated by William V. Dyke (New York: of things; it is a world of entities, such a s molecules or Crossroad, 1982), 152.

46 How is Intellectual Excellence in Philosophy to be Understood by a Catholic Philosopher? What has Philosophy to Contributeto Catholic Intellectual Excellence?

Alasdair MacIntyre

The questions which your association's invitationto pendently of anyone's desires or prJferences; that stand- me posed are ones that might tempt a speaker into easy ards of excellence must be such that theycan be shared generalities. What, from a distinctively Catholic by a comnnmity, transmitted through the activities and standpoint, is intellectual excellence? flow in particta teaching of a community, and rationally defended both should a Catholic conceive of intellectual excellence in within and outside that community; and thatwe have to philosophythe philosophy of professional academic understand these standards as God-given, with all that philosophers? What does philosophy haveto contribute that implies. But we cannot move from these initial to the overall intellectual excellence of a Catholic univer- commitments towards an adequate practically usable sity of college? It would be difficult to reply witha set of concention of intellectual excellence without engaging formulas, some of which mighteven be true. But general in a large-scale enquiry, something that ina meeting like formulas that we do not know how to apply to particular this we can only gesture towards. Forany adequate situations are empty. And a recognition of the serious account of intellectual excellence, in philosophy or else- difficulties that we in our present condition wouldcon- where, will be part of a theory of the virtues. Andmy front in trying to apply them isa first prerequisite for adequate theory of the virtues will be itself part ofsome constructing more useful answers. larger philosophical view of the practical and moral life. To say this is not to say something that holds only of So here I can do no more than ask in what direction philosophy. Catholic academic philosophers, like their ought we to begin to move if we are to discover whatwe colleagues in other disciplines, still have much workto need. I begin by rejecting twoanswers. The first would do on these questions, but theyare perhaps in a better have heel; found compelling to most Catholic position than some others, since the work that hasto be philosoplwrs in this century before Vatican II; the done in discovering how best to think about intellectual second, although not often made explicit, is presupposed excellence, whether in general or in natural scienceor in in the attitudes and activities of many philosophers who theology or whate\ ?r,i3always in significant wiws are Catholics today. Each is a distortion of a truth and, if philosophical worlo I begin both with a certain agno:;- I begin by emphasizing the distortion, is in the interests tic modesty about my or anyone else's ability toanswer of coming to terms with the tnith contained withinit. these questions and also with whatmay seem discipli- As you very well know, for the greater part of the nary arrogance about how we ought to proceed. Yet this period from Vatican I to Vatican II the translation of is a kind of philosophical work to which all ofus in generalities about intellectual excellence in philosophy universities and colleges, philosophers and non- into the concrete and specifi..terms of a generally shared philosophers alike, are going to have to contributeas theory of the virtues was achieved for the Catholiccom- part of our Catholic duty. For as Catholics weare already munity at large and for Catholic philosophers inpar- committed by the affirmations ofour faith to certain ticular by neo-Thomism, a development of the thought positions within philosophy about excellence,to hold- of Aquinas, through which Catholic philosophers ing, for example, that standards of good and evil, of the provided themselves with acommon sense of direction excellent and of the defective,are what they are inde- and a philosophical agenda, both prerequisites for shared standards of disciplinary excellence; thereby Dr. Welwyn, is the MiMalwn.ilanA Proteor of PhttoNophyat the Catholic philosophy of the late nineteenth and earlyto Untvers,ty Of Notre Dame. mid-twentieth century was enriched bya continuous

47 4 ; return to the texts not only and preeminently of Aquinas, standards still generally available to them, those of but also of Aristotle, Plato and Augustine. What the ex- professionalized academia. Insofar as they did so, they traordinary achievements of the neo-Thomistic period became committed to denying that in academic should have taught usamong much elsewas that it philosophy, at least, there is any need for specifically is only against the background of such a shared dire Catholic thinking about intellectual excellence. An ex- Hon, agenda, and reading of texts that defensible shared cellent Catholic philosopher is reconceived as no more judgments of intellectual excellence can be made. Take than an excellent philosopher, who happens also to be a away the kind of framework providedby neo-Thomism, Catholic. What then is excellence in philosophy? It is and in particular take away its understanding of the whatever hapr mis at this or that partkalar moment to virtues, and we no longer have the resources to make be judged outstanding ability in the most prestigious such judgments, unless we fall back upon vlib, lever departments of the great secular research universities. happen to be the current standards of the secelir profes- And it is unsurprising that a tendency to adopt this view sionalized academic world, something which, r,o I shall has occurred in a period in which the avowed aim of the argue, Catholic philosophers havegood ruaa not to do. administrative leaders of some fif the best Catholic Yet, as we also all know, it is a matter of historical fact universities was to make their institutions as like Har- that the neo-Thomistic framework became unavailable. vard or Princeton as possible. So the abandonment of It did so in part because of two important defects in it, Thomism, and more specifically of a Thomistic under- one response to which in North America hasbeen a standing of the virtoesincluding the virtues of intel- significant assimilation of Catholic philosophers to the lectual excellence, and the ambitions of administrators rest of their academic profec:,ion, both in the kind of reinforced each other to produce what turns out to be a directions which their work ho-: taken within philosophy seductive but quite inadequate view of intellectual ex- and in the standards of excellence by which they judge cellence, a view which nonetheless has provided a basis and are judged. What were those defects and how did for tenure and piomotion decisions in a significant num- they come to result in this kind of assimilation? ber of Catholic universities and colleges. There is of First, a counterpart to neo-Thomism's large success in course something right as well as something wrong in organizing the activities of Catholic philosophy i n Ca thol ic this view. What is right is the recognition that excellence wiversities and seminaries within a shared moral and in philosophy is not one thing fer Catholics and another intolectual framework, thus defining the relationship of for non-Catholics. It is not one thing for me and another the philosopher to the Catholic community in a way that for my non-Catholic colleagues. Moreover it is always was mutually rewarding, was its correspondingly large crucial that the standards and problems of contem- failure, for the most part, to enter into adequate dialogue porary secular academic philosophy should be taken with secular academic philosophy. Catholic philosophy with great F.eriousness by Catholic philosophers. What too often isolated itself and at its worst caricatured its is wrong 15 the capitulation te a professionalized view positivist or idealist or materialist opponents, some- of philosophy in which the exercise of technical skills on times announcing victory after a series of mock-battles the currenti;, fashionable problems of whatever school with straw men. of thought happens to be dominant is given an exag- Secondly, when at the end of the nineteen fifties there gerated importance. Richard Rortly has described, for was a radical change in cultural climate in Europe and es:ample, what he takes to be the "ideal of philosophical North America and a counterpart chanr,e in the Catholic ability" recently dominant among analytic philosophers community, neo-Thomism failed to retain the allegiance as that of an ability both "to spot flaws in any argument of those who were to become most influential in Catholic he hears" and "to construct as good an argument as can higher education, including philosophy. Excellent be constructed for any view, no matter how wrong- philosophical work continued to be done by individual headed." (Philosophy in America Today' in Consequen- Thomist philosophers, but T homism seemed to have ces of Pragmatism University of Minnesota Press: become no more than one philosophical option among Minneapolis, 1982, p. What such a view presents a number of others. Thus, what had been an established and fosters is a dissociation of 'ntellectual skills from framework within which standards of achievement in intellectual and moral virtues, oi a kind all too char lc- Catholic philosophy were set, and standards of excel- teristic of our culture in general; ind that is to say,c is lence upheld, not only failed to vindicate itself by its lack )dds with Thomistic Ariscotelianism and .vith of influence upon the issues and debates of contem- Catholic theology in upholding a conception of excol- porary secula r academic philosophy but also for a mixed lence in philosophical activity specifiable independntly bag of reasons, some bad, some good, lost its power to of that final end of truth to which philosophical enquire set shared recognizable, and defensible standards of moves, and of those moral as well as intellectual virtues intellectual excellence for Catholic philosophy. without which that end cannot be attained. Not all Some Ca tholic philosophers understandably, but professionalized philosophy of course is analytic potentially disastrously, turned as a consequence of this philosophy, but each type of professionalized philosophy rejection of Thomism to the only other set of common has it own characteristic inadequacies.

48 We therefore seem to find ourselves at an impasse in culture both inside and outside philosophy. The central our search for shared and recognizable standards of virtues of her writing appear first in the range and intellectual excellence in philosophy; those formerly discriminating complexity of her responses to the great provided by neo-Thomism are now too generally un- figures of philosophy, next in the insightful toughmin- available and those provided by contemporary secular dedness which so often both carries an argument beyond professional conceptions of philosophy are gravely the point where others were able or willing to take it, but defective. How then should we proceed? in such a way as to incite us to go further still, and finally We know initially two things: First, that as Catholics in her trenchant and unsentimental articulation of what we are unlikely ever to have a more adequate paradigm needs to be said by a Catholic philosopher at key points of philosophical excellence than that which Aquinas on which the teaching of the church and philosophy provided through his engagement with the philosophy both bear: faith, authority, whether and how warcan be of Aristotle, both in his life apd in this thought, and just, the relationship of sexuality to procreation. through ais development of that engagement intoa Yet praising those virtues of Anscombe's philosophi- decisive restatement of the central philosophical theses cal writing which make them an important example of and arguments of traditions of thought which had intellectual excellence to us all in this very general way reached him from a variety of Greek, Christian, Jewish could actually distract us from whatwe need to learn and Islamic sourceswe still, that is to say, need to listen from them, which is where and how to situate ourselves very carefully to what Aeterni Patris has to say to us; and, concretely in philosophy, so as to make possible foras secondly, that any contemporary response to Aristotle many students and teachers as possible the kind of or to Aquinas which does not treat the best of recent intellectual excellence in philosophy about whichwe, as non-Thomist philosophy with the same seriousness Catholics, ought to care. What that is wecan best under- with which Aquinas treated the Latin Averroists is stand by looking at what her work has in common with doomed to the same self-enclosed isolation whichjust- that of another Catholic exemplar of excellence in ly or unjustlydid so much to discredit neo-Thomism. philosophy, Edith Stein, later Sister Teresa Benedictaa But how are we even to begin to do this? Oneway to Cruce. begin, perhaps indeed the only way to begin, is by At first sight Anscombe and Stein may seemvery learning from those Catholic philosophers who in their different types of Catholic philosophers, theone for philosophical work have already provided models for most of her life a fellow of an Oxford college and from us.I think at once of two outstanding examples, those 1970 until her retirement occupying the Chair of of Professor G.E.M. Annscombe and of Edith Stein, Philosophy in the University of Cambridge, the other neither of them Thomists, although both have written unable, after her doctorate in 1916 and her subsequent about Aquinas. work, as Husserl's teaching assistant at Freiburg andas Elizabeth Anscombe's work in philosophy had from editor of his manuscripts, to obtain any academicap- the outset certain salient characteristics. Asa pupil of pointment in Germany, only because sim was a woman. Wittgenstein who through her later translation and edit- And their philosophical starting-pointswere also very ing of his writings was one of those responsible for different, Anscombe's as a pupil of Wittgenstein, Stein's making them 1.,:rt of the contemporary philosophical as a pupil of Husserl. But for our present purposes the canon, she learned not only how to pose new questions resemblances are what matter. for philosophy but also how to understand themas Each found the combination of philosophical inde- reopening older questions. So in her book on Wittgen- pendence of spirit with unqualified obedience to the stein's Tractatus she argued that in order to identify magisterium unproblematic. Each beganas a student of correctly the questions posed by Wittgenstein andear- someone who had offered a diagnosis of the failure of lier by Prege, one not only has to break with established modern philosophy to solve its problems and resolve its preconceptions but in so doing to recognize that "The disagreements by embarking on a radically new kind of investigations prompted by these questionsare more philosophical investigation. And each was able torecog- akin to ancient, than to more modern philosophy," and nize, to a degree that other students of Wittgenstein and she alludes in a footnote to a problem central to both Husserl were not, how within that new kind of inves- Plato and Wittgenstein. (AnIntroduction to Wittgenstein's tigation was to be found a partial return to olderques- Tractatus Hutcheson: London, 1959, p.13). tions, so that, just as Anscombe brought Wittgensteinian In her seminal book onIntention(Blackwell: Oxford, insights to a reopening of Aristotelian questions, Stein 1957), she simultaneously put Wittgenstein and Aris- brought Husserlian insights to a reopening of Thomistic totle to the question in an extended argument, which questions, something that she achieved most fully in among other things reestablished the central importance Endliches und Ewiges SeM, which she wroteas a Carmelite to the philosophy of mind and to moral philosophy oi nun. This is a work which a few Thomists have praised, Aristotle's theory of practical reasoning. In her subver- but it has effectively been ignored. And Iam tempted to sive paper on modern moral philosophy she under- understand this marginalizing of Stein's philosophical mined some central assumptions of modern secular writings as a symptom of just those weaknesses in neo- Catholic community since Vatican II has attempted to Thomism which contributed to its displacement. find substi:utes for what it took to be, sometimes with What then do we have to learn from these examples? good reason, inadequate in the ideals of excellence, in- First perhaps, that if we want to understand Catholic tellectual and otherwise, which informed the neo- intellectual excellence, examples developed in a detail Thomistic understanding of theory and practice. But which I cannot achieve here may in our present situation the time has come to recognize that this attempt has be initially more useful than definitions, although only failed. What we need is neither the old neo-Thomism of course if we choose the right examples. And in a too nor the new eclectic incoherence, but a different kind of often mediocre intellectual culture such as ours we are Thomism. all too apt to be victimized by the wrong examples. Nowhere is this more needed than in the theory of the What the right examples, such as those of Anscombe intellectual, moral and theological virtues, the place to and Stein, have to teach us is however clear: that intel- which we ought to be able to resort in order to recover lectual excellence in philosophy now requires that we a genuinely contemporary account of those virtues, ap- take as our starting-point a conception of what is now plicable to practice inside and outside the Catholic com- problematic in philosophy, which reiterates the ques- munity, within which we would find what we in tions posed by the greatest of recent philosophers, that universities and colleges most need: a detailed, specific is, by Musserl in his realist period and by Wittgenstein, and particular account of the virtues of intellectual ex- not in order to repeat, even if in elaborated form, their cellence and their relationship to the other virtues. The answers to their questions, but in order to bring their tasks involved are centrally philosophical. Philosophy questions with us to the task of reinterrogating Aristotle will of course have to draw upon the resources of other and Aquinas. Only so may we hope to engage in new disciplines, including both theology and literary and and effective forms of philosophical dialogue with that historical studies. But what philosophy alone can supp- tradition which extended from Socrates to Aquinas, and ly on these matters by itself justifies the important and beyond to the great medieval and renaissance commen- central place in the curriculum traditionally assigned to tators, a tradition which it was always the ambition and philosophy in Catholic universities and colleges. This to some extent the achievement of the neo-Thomistic last contention is of course controversial to the degree revi val to reestablish and to develop still further. A that my understanding of what philosophy in a Catholic Thumism which does not in this way respond to the context now has to dothat is, once again, as in six- problems and questions of the greatest of recent teenth century Spain and Portugal and as in nineteenth philosophers has no prospect of making a further major century Italy, Germany and France, to become Thomis- contribution either to philosophy or to the Catholic com- tic in yet another new wayis itself controversial. And munity; but, equally, a commitment to the best of recent it inescapably is. philosophy which fails to return us to Aristotle and to For l am well aware that those of you are Thomists will Aquinas will deny us the only possibility that we have have been provoked into disagreement by what I said of putting ourselves in touch once more with that tradi- earlier about the failure of neo-Thomism and that the tional philosophical framework without which, as we rest of you, non-Thomist or anti-Thomist, will now have ought to have learned by now, so much of Catholic been equally provoked by my call for a new Thomistic practice in the secular world becomes unintelligible and revival. When there is no one left in an audience to atrophies. We need, that is to say, a new and very antagonize, it is always a good time to stop. And so I different kind of Thomistic revival. A large part of the now do.

50 Catholic Intellectual Excellence: Science andTechnology

Alice Bourke Hayes

In the spirit of Saint Louis, I thought I'd begin witha You could tell this story with different villains, but the short quotation from a great non-scientific document, common elements would remain. Today, we face a Life on the Mississippi. Huckleberry Finn and Jimare veritable flotilla of steamboatsnuclear waste, acid floating on their raft down the Mississippi, the symbol rain, pollution, world hunger, global warming, genetic of innocence and unspoiled nature. hazards, reproductive engineering, in vitro fertilization, Well, the night got gray and rather thick, societal change. How do we live with this, and what is which is the next meanest thing toa fog. You the role of the Catholic scientist in shapinga future in can't tell the shape of the river and you can't which the human nnd the divineare enhanced? Will see no distance. It got to be very late and still, scholars 100 years from now look back and find that and then along comes a steamboatup the these challenges, these threats, whichare real and could river. We lit the lantern, and judged she would destroy our fragile rafts, have in fact providedoppor- see it We could hear her pounding along, tunities for human enrichment and spiritual growth? but we didn't see her good till she was close. The scientist tries to understand nature, to learn how its forces and products work. What scientists learn be- She aimed right for us .She was a big one, and she was coming in a hurry, too, all of a comes part of our comprehension of the human person, sudden she bulged out, big and scary, witha the forces and features of nature, andour concept of long row of wide-open furnace doors shining God. And what scientists learn becomes appliedto like red-hot teeth, and her monstrous bows produce new technologies. Thus, science and technol- and guards hanging right over us. Therewas ogy provide new insights and new options for a yell at us, and a jingling of bells to stop the humanity. Scientific theories, poetry, painting, sculp- engines, a powwow of cussing, and a whis- ture, the law, steamboats, lasers, computers,are things tling of steamnand as Jim went overboardon made. They are products of the human mind and heart one side and I on the other, she come smashing and hands. The more the mind and heart informs the straight through the raft.1 hand, the more we tend to view the things madeas art. The more the hand serves the mind and heart, themore This story, so close to our childhood and toour hearts, we tend to view the things made is technology. The could be a model for the common view of technology essential thing to remember is that technology isnot a the simple raft and the treacherous steamboat, the threat product of an alien world. Technology is not imported of destruction, the sense of being helpless before the from Mars or made by the Keebler elves. It isnot value- onslaught. The threat was real; the raftwas destroyed free, or autonomous, or beyond human control. Itis a by the steamboat. Today, a trip down the riveron a product of the human mind and hand. steamboat is considered a placid event. As frightening In fact, we recognize the presence of the human species as it was to Huckleberry Finn, it's a vacation for us. We by the evidence of things made. An archaeologist recognize from our safe distance of 100years that the defisles a site as human when artifactsroads, houses, development of steamboat transportation hada sig- statues, pots, evidence of agriculture, irrigation systems, nificant effect on communication between the South and and so onare found. Whenwe classify fossils as the Midwest, and we realize the cultural enrichment that hominid, we look not only at the bones, but alsoat the occurred. We aren't frightened by the steamboatany evidence of high skill in the things made,cave paintings more and can enjoy the beauty of a trip and the literature and flints, and recognize that thesame skill that chips a it has inspired. flint to make a handaxe also shapes thestone to make a religious figurine. WNW Science and technology are the result of intellectual Dr. ilayes is prowst and execul we me presidentI Saint Louis 'versify. activity, and any discussion of Catholic intellectual life

313 should include these perspectives. There is no special valid until it is negated.Although we describe the Catholic insight to the law of gravity or the structure of regularities observed in nature as laws, a scientist would enzymes. There is no such thing asCatholic physics or not suggest that any of our ideas are infallible. Catholic chemistry. Science does not propose or pretend Because of the way in which knowledge is gained, to prove theological concepts. Scientistsunderstand the changes in basic tenets or new discoveries are not really world in a different way. Today 1 would like to discuss anticipated in religious study. We don't expect to find (1) the differences between the intellectual approaches an 11th commandment or tochange a major doctiine. used by scientists and the religious modes of thought However, the scientist expects to find new insights. This which are the primary source of the Catholic intellectual is a major difference between the two kinds of vision; (2) the impact of scientific insights on the knowledge. It results in a very different attitude towards Catholic vision and vice versa; and (3) some concerns statements, which in science are always subject to ques- about the role of science and the scientist in Catholic tion and in religion are usually not. The difference is intellectual life. more theoretical than actual, since scientists maywork First, the models, the shape of our thoughts. As Fr. within a paradigm without challenging its major as- Thaddeus Burch has pointed out, scientific models dif- sumptions, and since religi Ais knowledge does grow fer in almost every important respect from the models and new insights are found. The difference is that there used in religion which have so influenced the develop- is little expectation of change in the vision of the church, ment of Catholicintellectuals.2 and indeed change is usually resisted. This helps explain The models differ in scope. Religion attempts to un- some of the events in the historyof the interaction derstand all of reality; God, humanity, the cosmos, and between the church and science. their relationships. Scientists would like to understand Religious knowledge commands deep personal com- all of reality but do not propose that scientific methods mitment. The martyrs staked their lives on their beliefs. can do so. Steven Hawking's recentbook on the history Scientific knowledge does not command that kind of of time (which is, astonishingly, a best seller) is often commitment. One could argue that, in a sense, the first cited for the suggestion that if we just knew the grand astronr ked his life on Isaac Newton's theories, or unified theory we would understand the mind of God. that evL we take medication or submit to surgery But Hawking doesn't propose that science alone will we stakt. our lives on scientificknowledge. Still, we give this insight. Since this statement of Hawking is so would readily change medication or lunar modules in often quoted in part, let me quote it in full, " if we do the light of new information. In the sciences, the primary discover a complete theory, . . .Then we shall all, commitment is not to the idea; it is to the process. philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be We all seek truth, but it is a different truth. The Catholic able to take part in the discussion of the question of why vision must be true to revelation. The scientific vision it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer must be true to material fact or mathematics. The values to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human that arise from the methodology of the scientist are Old reason--for then we would know the mind ofGod."3 Testament values: truth, justice, integrity. The Catholic Hawking does not suggest that the right set of equations vision emphasizes a New Testament perspective of love in a grand unified theory would tell you "all you ever and freedom. As different as science is from traditional wanted to know" about God, but that it would enrich Catholic thinking in scope, methodology, mindset, the discussion. The most the scientist claims to under- values, and virtues, Catholic intellectual life must in- stand is a part of reality, that part which is accessible by clude the issues raised by the sciences in the vision that scientific inquiry. reflects revelation. The models differ in their source of knowledge. As Jacob Bronowski observed, "The moral problem of Religion uses divine revelation and reason, and the our century is to make the values of science as much a modes of reasoning used are primarily analogy and logic. part of our lives ei are the values which religion and The relationships studied are qualitative. Knowledge is literature have long glorified. We must learn to build a tested in the same manner in which it is gained: by complete morality, in which love no longer fights against revelation and reason.It is considered valid if it is truth in our unconscious thoughts. For our weakness is endorsed by the magisterium. It can even be declared that we think that love and even goodness are infallible by the pope. threatened by truth ... .4 Scientific knowledge is based entirely on reason, and Pope John Paul II recently said, "Science can purify the modes of reasoning used are primarily founded in religion from error and superstition; religion can purify experiment and mathematics. These methods do not science from idolatry and false absolutes . ...The un- give certain knowledge, nor is it ever claimed. Scientific precedented opportunity we have today is for a com- knowledge is always considered provisional. The mon interactive relationship in which each discipline relationships discovered are primarily quantitative. retains its integrity and yet is radically open to the Know'edge in the sciences is tested by the ability of new discoveries and insights of the other."5 ideas to explain and predict, and a concept is held as

52 eler, 'it The ideal is well expressed; the reality is still to be Those who are not scientists must make a serious achieved, We search for intellectual wholeness, in- effort to understand what the scientists have learned, tegrity, a single vision which encompasses both scien- helping us understand its spiritual significance and how tific and religious views. Then indeed we could hope for new discoveries fit into the broader framework. We excellence. need to recognize the differences in our modes of Often our religious views are based on a pre-Coper- thought and seek ways to bring our conclusions into nican, pre-Darwinian, pre-Freud, pre-Einstein, pre-Wat- harmony. son/Crick view of the world and of humanity, and with Fr. Walter Ong, whom we honor today, recognized in these religious concepts and imagery we are trying to a recent paper "a parable of yeast." He observed that understand life in a world of biotechnology, computers, yeast is kept alive by bein8 brought into contact with telecommunications, satellites, and molecular neuros- new materials, and then it continues to grow and leavens cience. It reminds me of the triumphant announcement the new mass. made by the Soviet cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, when he Perhaps the first serious scientific challenge to tradi- returned from his historical orbit, that he had disproved tional Catholic thinking began with the suggestion of the existence of God. He told the 7eporters that he had Copernicus that the earth was not the center of the been up theri, and he had looked all around, and he universe and that the Ptolemaic cosmology was wrong. didn't see God. I thought, how poignant that the quin- Then Galileo presented evidence that the heavens were tessential 20th century tnan seemed to be searching for not perfect, were not limited to those planets and stars the quintessence, a pre-16th ceotury notion that heaven that we could see with the human eye, and that the earth was up , a nd a Michelangelo picture of God, the old man was a planet like other planets. Because all of biology, with the bkard, reaching down from his cloud. One part physics, and chemistry were tied to the Ptolemaic cos- of Gagarin's intellectual development was at the fron- mology, these new discoveries caused a major upheaval tiers of science and technology, and the other part held in scientific thought. Because our understanding of the a medieval world view. human person and our relationship to God was also tied Many of us are conscions of this kind of dissonance to that cosmology, these new thoughts became a when we say the creed, with its pre-Copernican imagery religious threat. of Jesus ascending and descending, a cosmos divided How did Catholic thought respond to these new into heaven and earth, a pre-evolutionary view of crea- ideas? At first, with opposition. The theory of motion tion and biology. The creed was written for the first proposed by Copernicus was condemned by a decree of Council of Nicea in AD. 325 and revised by the Councii the Index in 1616. Galileo was forbidden to teach and of Constantinople in 381. Theologians will know if it was placed on house arrest in 1632. His observations chal- meant literally in 381, but much of our understanding of lenged the literal interpretatitA of scriptures and the it is more metaphorical than literal. We mentally trans- centrality of huiranity in the univer3e. Pietro Redondi late between what we are saying and what it means. We recently speculated that Ga,ileo's atomism brought new pray in 4th century language while we live on the eve of perspectives to the ult.standing of light, color, smell, the 21st. and taste which chall9nged scholastic explanations of How many of us are walking around with un- the transubstantiation of the eucharist. Redondi has synchronized compartments in our intellectual life? described the discussions beiween those concerned with These compartments don't enrich each other if our theological issues and those conceriwd with mathe- spiritual and scientific world views are literally incon- matics and cosmology as a "dialogue among the deaf."6 gruous. We need to express our faith in contemporary Neither could hear what the other said, and the ques- terms well enough to hold our knowledge in the grasp tions and answers did not relate. The clash between of our values. scientific discoveries and traditional church teaching This is the great challenge that the sciences and tech- was deep and diametric. nology present. The challenge is the same for the Catholic Eventually, the church accepted the solar system and scientist as it is for the colleague from another discipline. the atomic theory. From the safe distance of a few cen- It is to inform the Catholic vision with the scientific turies, the fear of these ideas has disappeared. Recently, vision, and vice versa. It is a challenge which requires in September, 1989, Pope John Paul II addressed the effort from all of us. Scientists must conduct investiga- University of Pisa and acknowledged the greatness of tions in a way that respects religious values. We must Galileo. But we still use the Ptolemaic imagery in our try to learn how to apply moral standards to develop- textbooks and our prayers and have not replaced It with ments that were not even anticipated when the tradi- new imagery that would do justice to the grandeur of tional ethical guidelines were worked out. We need to creation. be sensitive to the potential applications and implica- Before we get too critical of the church, remember that tions of our discoveries. As Frederick Ferry' observed the daily newspaper still reports every day the time of "The technosphere is morally charged." Our work is sunrise and sunset although we know the sun does not subject to ethical assessment. orbit the earth, and people faithfully read their horo- .1 scopes which are based on the zodiac,whicl. is the path bang" of 15 to 20 billion years ago, or perhaps to thinking through which the sun supposedly circles the earth. It's about a steady state system without any identifiable easier to acquire knowledge than it is to fully assimilate boundary in space or time in which creation is very hard it. to describe. We have moved from Newton's mechanistic Biology began with attempts to explain phenomena world to a probabilisti,. one, to chaos theory. How does based on careful observation of the structure and be- Catholic thought respond? It's too soon to say. We are havior of living organisms. Early biology was primarily in the midst of this discussion. descriptive. However, it was recognized that if you Hawking relates a chilling story about an experience wanted to learn about the working of a human body you in 1981 at a conference on cosmology at the Vatican. He could learn a great deal by dissecting a dog or a frog, but writes: "At the end of the conference the participants the leap to recognition of the relationship of dogs and were granted an audience with the pope. Hetold us that frogs to human beings was not easy. Darwin's great it was all right to study the evolution of the universe synthesis of observations and introspection in the 19th after the big bang, but we should not inquire into the big century brought the recognition of evolution. bang itself because that was the moment of Creation and How did Catholic thought respond? At first with therefore the work of God."7 I hope that this conversa- opposition. Darwin's Origin of Specks was placed on the tion was not remembered accurately. It has been widely Imiex. Literal versions of Adam and Eve in the Garden discussed because of the popularity of the book, but I do were defended. Buffon was threatened with excom- not know of any church statements about the big bang munication. But eventually, the church accepted the hypothesis, nor do scientists agree about the scientific past, and now from the safe distance of over 1(X) years, validity of the hypothesis. the opposition to the theory of evolution has largely I prefer Father Ong's parable, and his observation: disappeared. The dough in which the yeast of the Kingdom Evolution brought us a different view of the origins of is planted is an immeasurably greater mass of human beings and a different, wonderful view of God. immeasurable greater age than we used to The creation is no longer something that happened a few think....When we think of God as creator of thousand years ago; we are still evolving; the creation is the world or universe, at least in our pastoral still 4oing on. We have a past as well as a present, and (including liturgical), homiletic and devotion- the tuture will not be the same as either of them. Evolu- al life, it appears that we are still most likely to tion suggests that human nature is not static. It is chang- think of the world in pretty archaic terms. ing over time, and our knowledge of it is changing as What we see around us is accommodated well. This dynamic view of an evolving nature with a directly to the ordinary human senses and genetic link to the pre-human past and biological imagination, that is, the visible earth and what mechanisms for continuing change has implications for surrounds it, the sun and moon and planets the Catholic concept of natural law. I believe that we and stars as they appear to the unaided eye, a have not yet fully appreciated the implications of an world full of beauty and wonder, but con- evolving humanity. stituting not one billionth of what everyone The theory of evolution also recognizes that human now knows the universe that God created beings are part of the organic kingdom and part of the really is ...Paul tells us (Rom 1:20) that we interaction between el,vironment and organism. We ',am of God's grandeur from 'the things He are part of a food chain, of energy and mineral and water has made.' But now that we have found out so cycles, part of the biosphere. How does Catholic thought much more about what these things really are, respond? This has implications for Catholic teaching on in our actual living of the faith we have yet to the relationship between human beings and the rest of learn from them. We need to bring present the universe. We move from a separatist perspective of knowledge of the actual universe to bear on dominion over creation to a participant's recognition of such things as our thinking of God's creative our stewardship of the earth. Pollution is not just messy; act, of the life and life expectancy of the church, it's wrong. Handling of nuclear waste is not just a of eschatological time, of the Incarnation and management problem; it's a moral issue. The Catholic the Second Coming, and so much else. The perspective of the value of life and Our responsibility to yeast that is the Kingdom has a great deal to protect creation enriches the scientific realization of the engage itself withhere.8 ecosphere. In physics, our knowledge has multiplied. We no One of the joys of being at Saint Louis University is the longer see the universe in terms of the heavens and the presence of Father Ong, whose vision of Catholic intel- earth. We see stars and planets, cold dark matter, lectual life is not daunted by scientific knowledge, but is galaxies, superclusters, and black holes. As I am not a rather excited by adventures of the mind, and who sees physicist, my understanding of this is very limited. The the efforts of scientists as catalytic for the growth of the phrase "in the beginning" brings images of "the big church.

54 In the past 25 to 35 years, we have begun to deeply subjects committees, and hospital ethics committees. understand the way in which the human body functions Scientific work is complex and, unfortunately, poorly and reproduces. In 1956 Watson and Crick proposed understood by the nonscientist. Yet, as Fr. Timothy that the blueprints for development are in code in the Healy recently observed, American Catholic university sequence of polydeoxynucleotide base pairs in the medical scientists were not even consulted in the for- nucleic acid of the chromosomes. It is information, not mulation of the recent Vatican statement on in vitro matter, that counts. Materialism falls before informa- fertilization.13 I believe that scientistsmust contribute to tion theory. In 1962, Kornberg found that the DNA the discussion about the morality of scientificex- molecole, the molecule that can direct its own replica- perimentation, arid that philosophers and theologians tion, can be synthesized. Steward showed that any cell should encourage exchanges of view. in a plantnot just the egg or the spermANY cell can There are such exchanges in places like the Center for be cultured to form a whole new individual. Reproduc- Bioethics of the Kennedy Institute at Georgetown; the tive cells are not unique in their reproductive capacity. Institute of Society, Ethics and the Life Sciences of the Fertilization and development are no longer secret and Hastings Center; the Center for Health Care Ethics at mysterious. We understand the process and develop Saint Louis University; the Institute for the Theological technologies around it. The first kidney transplant was Encounter with Science and Technology, 1TEST, also 32 years ago; Christian Barnard first transplanteda heart centered at Saint Louis University, and on many univer- from human to human 24 years ago. Louise Brown is 12 sity campuses. I do expect that eventually the options years old. We can transfer genes into cells and have and insights developed by molecular and cell biology, transferred genes into human cells within the pastyear. like the solar system, the atomic theory, evolution, ecol- We can grow human tissues in a petri dish. Weare ogy, psychology, and cosmology, will become part of the decoding the human genome. Catholic intellectual vision. These are exciting opportunities, but they pose chal- Srientific ideas are so powerful, and have such great lenges to us to grasp the meaning and potential uses of significance for intellmtual life. To not incorporate them this information. These new developments look like into Catholic intellectual schema is to leave part ofour steamboats to a shaky raft. We are technologizing natural minds in another century. I am concerned about the role processes. of science and the scientist in Catholic intellectual life. How does Catholic thought respond? Again, often Most of the faculty of Catholic universities were edu- with opposition. Reactions have been largely basedon cated primarily in the humanities, and science is lot an traditional teachings. There have certainly been words important part of their vision. Because of the paucily of of caution. Pius XII warned against in vitro fertilization Catholic scientists, many of the finest scientists ofour in 1951,1ong before it was attempted in humans.9 In the faculties are not Catholic and have limited under- early 1970's there was literature about preembryonic standing of the Cathe'ic intellectual tradition. We aren't interventions. Pope John Paul II recently observed, "As teaching much science to nonscientists in our core cur- to the study of human life, we are all aware of the ricula, usually only one or two-year sequences. Most of admirable progress made in biology and bioengineer- our science majors are pre-med, and we aren't producing, but we are also aware of the dangers inherent in rash ing significant numbers of scientists. experimentation which involves unacceptable forms of John Miller of the rublic Opinion Lab estimated in manipulation and alteration.10 1985 that only 5% of American adults were scientifically Despite the popular images of Frankenstein and Dr. literate. He thought that the attentive public, those that Strangelove, and acknowledging that Ecientists can be as would read an article or listen to a newscaston a scien- arrogant, ambitious, and venal as anybody else, I would tific topic, was 18%. However, these people would not not like to see scientific work characterized as rash. be able to understand the developmenton their own and Great caution has been observed. Scientists have them- would have to have it explained to them by the journalist selves in the recent past called moratoriaon research or commentator. They are vulnerable to the most per- until guidelines were developed. Therewas a suasive speaker. Last year only 15% of American high moratorium on genetic engineering and a moratorium school graduates took a physics course, and only 30% on fetal research.11 The scientific community has worked had taken chemistry. As many as 45%never took al- with the government on commissions controlling and gebra. limiting research to try to assure ethical standards of As Jacob Bronowski observed, "The civilized world is, experimentation.12 Not all the conclusionsof these indeed, threatened with destruction by the physical im- groups have been acceptable to Catholics, but the pact of science on our lives .What threatens us. ..is genuine efforts to proceed with caution and careques- not the scientific discovery, but our own failure to weigh tion a characterization of scientists as rash or insensitive all the copsequences honestly and withoutcom- to human dignity. promise."11 The limited public understandingof science Institutions carefully monitor and screen research makes it unlikely that we can weigh the consequences proposals through institutional review boards, human well. Decisions may be made with the guidance ofan astrologer or on the basis of the political party of the phasis on "the priority of the ethical over the technical, person presenting a proposal or becauseof a band of the primacy of the person over things, of the supe- wagon sent rolling by someone withlimited knowledge riority of the spirit overrnatter."15 However, Catholic rather than any real understanding of a science-related intellectuals cannot wait this out, hoping for the distance issue. of 100 years to understand these discoveries well I am concerned about the extent to which scientific enough to respond to the moral issues. The advance of illiteracy may affect the Catholic world view.If knowledge is too rapid and the investigations too sensi- Catholics do not understand scientific concepts and in- tive.Scientists need to engage in serious discussion formation, how can they provide insight to the moral with their colleagues in philosophy, theology, and other implications of today's scientific work? The old worn disciplines to reach together an understanding of the words we continue to hear were written for an earlier nature of life and the cosmos, an understanding com- level of knowledge. Sometimes they still fit, and we gain pa tible with contemporary biology,chemistry, and strength from them. Sometimes they seem hopelessly physics, open to new ideas and supported by meaning- inadequate. We are prudent to be cautious about these ful ethical and spiritual teaching. developments. We want to follow John Paul II's em-

1. Mark Twain, Life in the Mississippi (New York: Harpers, 1989). 9. Hawking. 2. T. Burch, SJ, in Science/Technology Education in Churdi-related Colleges 10. John l'aul and Universities. ed. Robert A. Brungs, conference prowedings (St. 11. "Recombinant DNA: From the Moratorium to Patenting Life" The Louis: ITEST Faitti/Science l'ress, 1989). Hasthigs Center Report 10 (1980): 10; alos "Reports to the National 3. Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Times (Toronto: Bantam, 1988). Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects" The I last i»gsCe»ter Report 5 (1975): 11. 4. Bronowski, A Semi, of the Future (Cambridge, MIT Press, 1977). 12. Leroy Walters, "Human In Vitro Fertilization: A Review of the 5. Julin Paul II, "The Links between Science and Faith" Origins 19:337. Ethical Literature" The HastingsCenter Report 9(1979): 23; also "Reports

.Protection of Human Subjects" above. 6.Piotro Redondi, Galileo: Heretic (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987). 13. Timothy S. Healy, SJ, "Probity and Freedom on the Border: Learn- ing and Belief in the Catholic University" America 163 (July 7, 1990): 5. 7. Hawking. 8. Walter Ong, SJ, "Yeast: A Parable for Catholic Higlwr Education" 14. Bronowski. Americo 162 (April 7, 1990):347. 15. John Paul II, "Ex Corde Ecclesiae" Origins 20:265.

56 Theological Excellence in the Catholic University

Mary Collins, OSB

The community of scholars involved in the theological and commitment to disciplined, non-utilitarian enterprise enjoys a firm consensus within the church work that its task is to mediate between Christian faith and culture, although there are differing opinions in the The obvious difference between the intellectual dilet- church community about how that mediation is to be tante and the intellectual capable of excellent achieve- effected,Catholic colleges and universities in the ment in the mediation between Christian faith and United States have made a commitment to participate in culture is firm grasp of the historical tradition and the the theological enterprise as part of their mission. We research tools and interpretative skills adequate to the appoint faculties with specializations in theological dis- inquiry being undertaken. The habits of entertaining ciplines; we set out courses of study for undergraduates, adventuresome hypotheses and asking lots of questions and in a limited number of Our institutions weprepare yield little of themselves; the inquirer must be prepared doctoral students for research and teachingas. profes- to identify, interpret, and evaluate pertinent data. That sional theologians. takes both leisure and discipline. An academic institu- This conference invites us to assessour efforts. Have tion is assumed to provide for both of these. we made a commitment to intellectual excellence in the Yet the opinion has been voiced that the contemporary conduct of the theological enterprise in our institutions? American academic institution is an unfavorable setting By what criteria would we measure such a commitment? for intellectual excellence in any field, becauseour ap- What obstacles are we facing in making this commit- proach to education is profoundly utilitarian and market- ment to excellence?I offer you my perspective as the driven. The jeopardy is doubled when oneproposes a basis for our common reflection. commitment to excellence in the intellectual enterprise that is Catholic theology. For despite repeated assertions IDENTIFYING THE CHALLENGE within the community of Catholic teachers episcopal and academic that there can be no contradiction b .Aween Intellectual excellence, personal or institutional, faith and reason, when the intellectual inquirer iden- presumes rich gifts of intellect. But such natural talent tifies a profound tension, the historical record shows it is not enough; it must be cultivated.In the past two is ecclesiastical authority and not faiih-filledreason that years I have been engaged in a collaborative research inevitably controls the engagement. In the interests of project in "Women Religious and the Intellectual Life," avoiding such crises in the ecclesiasticalagora, even and the project has become the occasion for considering Catholic theology can become utilitarian. what habits of mind characterize "the intellectual" by Alert to the problems signaled by such judgments, it way of contrast with ordinary minds that readily incul- is still worth pursuing the question of the conditions for cate what has been called "other people's knowledge." the possibility of achieving intellectual excellence in the Our investigator came up with a composite profile. The theological disciplines within our Catholic institutions intellectual shows: of higher education. Many of you areaware of Matthew playfulness of mind and delight in ideas Lamb's America article in May, 1990, in which he givesa a perception of the importance of ideas bleak reading of the prospect for the survivalamong us a critically detached relationship to s...ciety in the of an authentically Catholic theologymuch less search for larger meanings prospects for excellence.2 He tells of a generation of bright Catholicwomen and men taking up doctoral studies in the theological disciplines at Harvard, Yale, and the University of Chicago, Sister Mary Collin:, is chair of the Department of Religion and Religious Education at the Catholic University of America. where professors who excel in their knowledge of the Catholic tradition are extremely few. Why theseinstitu- this does not mean that they have achievedthe tions and not ours? In the absence of anyfirm data, we intellectual's "critically detached relationship" tocul- can only guess. Moneyperhaps? But Notre Dame has ture and institutions in the search for largermeanings money. Do these studentsjudge that intellectual excel- least of all to the American culture in which theylive. lence is more likely to be found in facultiesthat they Our students have invested themselves in the American perceivehowever naivelyto be doing wholly disin- dream; and they count a degree from us as part ofthe terested research unencumbered by constraints of any investment. Within a one, two, three, or four course kind. Do they expect to find more competent anddedi- distribution requirement in theology or religious cated mentors? Will they have wider academic resour- studies, can Catholic colleges and universities aspire to ces on which to draw? Willthey have more rigorous intellectual excellence for their pious, agnostic, or intellectual demands placed on them? alienated undergraduates? Lamb has reason to raise questions about a post-con- In designing an undergraduate curriculum, we intent ciliar generation of doctoral students beingprepared to to respond to their needs. But what is thatneed? Scrip- mediate between Christian faith and culture without ture? Christology? An introduction to theology?Do any disciplined study ofthe historical Catholic tradition our unclqrgraduates need tolook at the Cod question as of Christian faith. You and I face the problem ofwhich a cultural question? Do theyneed to understand the he writes when we make new faculty appointments in church as the community of salvation? Do they need to our departments of theologyand religion. In our inter- know Catholic teaching on pressing moral issues? What views we sit at the table with promisingscholars whose about their need to know Catholic traditions of prayer: knowledge of and interest in the Catholic theological liturgy and ktiodivina, popular devotions and mystical tradition is not much greater than that of the under- contemplation? Do they need to understand how Chris- graduates we want them to teach. We find them attrac- tianity distinguishes itself from other world religions tive as potential faculty colleagues. But wewonder: Is to make the journey into another viewpoint sothat they this the appointment that will best support our mission can return home with insight? Dothey need to under- to our undergraduates? Is this young scholarlikely to stand and admire great Catholic figuresthe poets, do excellent research that contributes to authentic un- mystics, teachers, and scholars? What content,explored derstanding and interpretation of the Catholic tradition? in what sequences of courses, will give them access to mb wonders about the doctoral students whodo authentic understanding of the Catholic tradition of not ('lect to study with our faculties. Butwhat of those Christian faith? who do? Do we aspire to intellectual excellence both for A sense of order would suggest the judgment that we ourselves and for them in this work of mediating be- need to begin at the beginning. But locating the begin- tween Christian faith and culture? Who are our current ning for our liberal arts undergraduate curriculum is doctoral students? Who are our undergraduates, the just what is at issue. St. Augustine told North African young women and men who constitute alarge part of catechists that what was necessary at the beginning for the pool from whom we will draw for our theological the inquirer into Christian faith was a presentation of the faculties in the next century? whole narrative of salvation. Other bishops contemporary with Augustine provided thenewly baptized UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES with an exposition of the Christian mystery liturgically celebrated.But the ministries of catechists and mys- Let us begin with our undergraduates. Complex his- tagogue have traditionally been distinct from the minis- torical circumstances have produced a generation of 18 try of the teacher in the Christian community.And we to 25 year old Catholics wlo come to us generally ig- claim to be in the teaching ministry, in continuity with norant of or narrowly informed about the richCatholic the activity of an Origen or a Tertullian, mediating be- tradition of Christian faith. That void is only the begin- tween Christian faith and culture. ning of our challenge. Whatever "playfulness of mind What is a sound starting point for the Catholic college and delight in ideas" can be found among them, it is or university professor of young adults pooylyinformed seldom focused on religious questions. They may be about religion and its institutions? Our theological tradi- pious, agnostic, or alienated; but however their early tion tells us there is only one mystery to be grasped, the lives have shaped them, understanding the mysterium mystery of salvation in the divine-human communion trenwndum et faseinans is not a problem that consumes of love. Our faith says Christ is the center as well as many of them in late adolescence. Thepious may want Alpha and Omega of that mystery of salvation. But our to learn conventional answers to conventional questions communal tradition is filled with many diverse wit- about the Catholic tradition, but few of the pious are nesses to historical faith in this one mysteryof salvation: ready to probe either the importance of conventional textual and non-textual, official, communal, structural, questions or the meaning of conventional answers. popular, and personal. On the other hand, our present The agnostics and the alienated have typically historical situation is filled with contrast experiences of detached themselves from all religious questions. But persons, movements, events, structuresthat promise

58 salvation and deliver destruction and oppression. What simply emulates the seminary tradition of dogmatic do our undergraduates need to learn from the theology theology according to a schema of tracts. But neither or religion department? should we pull back on our commitment to authentic Twenty years of undergraduate teaching and ad- theological reflection.Identifying central religious ministration confirm my conviction that we must offer questions for critical inquiry is an imperative if we aspire students the possibility of an intellectual understanding to excellence in our work. of those multiple witnesses to the historical tradition of In summary, our departmental task is to bring under- Christian faith. For they are multiple. The Biblemay be graduate students to serious intellectual engagement "the Great Code,"3 but the biblical account of revelation with some part of the Catholic tradition of Christian has regularly been decoded and recoded, not only in the faith, to lead them to understand the intelligibility of logically rigorous language of definition but also in the some significant aspect of or moment in the tradition. metaphorical and symbolical languages of ritual, drama, Even for our doctoral students orour faculties, it is an poetry, narrative or even the language of virtue and impossible pretention to claim intellectual comprehen- good deeds. If we concur with the theologian's judg- sion of the truth of all expression of the tradition. But if ment that all these expressions point to the one mystery, we enable undergraduates to understand something that they manifest the "analogy of faith,"an intelligent well, to discover its truth and intelligibility for theirown and resourceful teaching faculty can move to the center time and place, if we help them to discover thecom- from a wide range of starting pointsstarting points patibility of faith and reason, such understanding is from within the Catholic tradition of Christian faithor pledge and promise to them that the whole of which even from particular cultural standpoints. The "move they now understand a part may indeedexpress the to the center" from any chosen starting point will in- truth of a great mystery. If we do this introductory work evitably involve some vigorous intellectual activity in wellif, in fact, we aspire to excellencestudents will the search for intelligibility, for grasping the truth within leave us with more than an appropriate number of the Catholic tradition of Christian faith. credits. They will have reason to trust the religious It is not self-evident to me, as a liturgiologist, that the traditions even when these elude their immediatecom- texts of the Bible or of dogmatic theology have eithera prehension; and they will also have the confidenceto pedagogical or logical claim to priority inour effort to continue the search for understanding both the Catholic engage undergraduates intellectually in understanding tradition of Christian faith and the religious languages the Catholic tradition of Christian faith. Theoretically, of other peoples. Some among themmay chose to be- we can begin with virtually any data or issue which come theologians. engages our students. Actually, the resources of each institution are limited, and we must work with theresour- DOCTORAL STUDIES ces we have. In an undergraduate setting, whether in a college of arts and sciences or in professional schools, Matthew Lamb's question about the suitable setting the academic challenge is to designa curriculum which for preparing a next generation of Catholic theologians is intellectually stimulating and demanding, notone for intellectual excellenceour institutionsor "theirs" which aims to touch everything, however lightly. If the raises different questions. If we say "ours"we have yet limited number of carefully plannedcourses are intel- to consider what that involves. Some in our ecclesial lectually stimulating, our students will learnsome part communion judge that the task of Catholic theologians of the technical languages of the Christian tradition in is to be direct agents of the official magisterium,pursu- the course of their inquiry. But students will also be ing the agenda which is set by ecclesiastical authority. awakened to the mysterium trememium et faschians inone Others see a wider purpose in theological reflection; of its many manifestations. they draw their agendas from the life of the ecclesial In our current climate, when some higher education community or even from the marketplace. This issue reformers have reintroduced the call fora core cur- and perceptions of how it has been resolved in particular riculum to guarantee cultural literacy and othersare settings is undoubtedly a significant factor for aspiring demanding further diversification of the curriculumto Catholic theologians making decisions about where promote an appreciation of cultural pluralism, religious they will pursue doctoral studies. Who sets the agenda studies and theology departments are being pressedto for religious and theological studies in Catholic colleges look at present curricula. Do we havea vision or a and universities? smorgasbord? If we have strayed, canwe now agree on The academic setting within which most Catholic what is essential? theology and religious studies faculties worksuggest a I am prepared to make thecase for a curriculum that broad answer to the question. The original siteat The does not answer that question too narrowly.4 As Catholic University of America for pursuing the PhD academic departments, we should not takeon respon- degree in the Catholic tradition of Christian faith, the sibility for religious formation which is not properly Department of Religion and Religious Education, had its intellectual. Nor should we developa curriculum that origins in the School of Arts and Sciences; and this

59 6 1 organizational structure promoted the awareness that it Minimally, the faculty of a research university affords is the whole university that provides resourcesfor the our students wide access tothe cognate research tools theological enterprise. The department's present inter- and skills essential for the theological enterprise. But it disciplinary commitment was foreshadowed in its also gives doctoral students intelligent and generally founding by John Montgomery Cooper, a priest who disinterested conversation partners who will shatpen was also the founding chair ofthe Department of and focus their inquiry. Doctoral students doing Catholic. Anthropology. Institutional reorganization at Catholic theology need to have access to experts in scripture, University in the 1970s uprooted the department from dogma, and institutional history. But they also need to its arts and sciences home and transplanted it into a be in conversation with anthropologists and newly constituted School of Religious Studies. Two musicologists, philosophers, historians, sociologists and decades later, the institutional consequences of that psychologists, political and economic theorists, physicists move are in evidence. We have a newgeneration of and biologists, classicists, linguists, statisticians and university faculty and administrators who, on the basis lawyers as they learn to formulate their research ques- of this structural arrangement, too often viewthe tions and develop appropriate research methods and enterpi Ise of theological reflection as a world apartfrom skills. It is presumptuous to aspire to mediate between their own academic interests and intellectual agendas. faith and culture without a disciplined understanding Fortunately, we continue to attract intellectually of some aspects of human culture. gifted doctoral students with a broaderif not always Study of the doctrinal and dogmatic traditions is a clearerperspective.In the initial interview many necessary part of the theologicalenterprise, but it is regularly announce that their interest is "not theology." propaedeu tic to excellent constructive theological Rather, they want to do a doctorate in exploring the reflection on the relationship between faith and culture. relationship between "religion and culture."Often I do not think any academic institution, whether divinity enough they are surprised to learn that we consider school, theological institute, or university depa rtment critical understanding of the historical tradition of "theirs" or "ours"can prepare doctoral students ade- Christian faith and knowledge of theological method to quately to take up the work of theological reflection be integral to all disciplined study of religion and culture without drawing on the resources of a full university at CUA. Their surprise is grounded in the perception faculty. But doctoral students preparing to mediate be- that doing theology is something distinct from sys- tween the Catholic tradition of Christian faith and cul- tematic reflection on the relationship between religious ture need a distinctive kind of university faculty. faith and culture. This is not our departmental under- What kind? If we aspire to intellectual excellence for standing. our doctoral students, it is indispensable thatthey have Fourteen out of sixteen regular faculty earned their the opportunity to associate with a research faculty who doctoral degrees in some theological specialimtion. Yet have catholic sensibilities as well as an appreciation for all our faculty have subsequently developed interdis- and knowledge of past and present expressions of the ciplinary research interests and methods in their own Catholic tradition of Christian faith. Without this larger areas of theological specialization, Its ownprofessional context, we are working against the odds in trying to development has let the faculty to the conviction that prepare a next generation of Catholictheologians. But while our doctoral students are working with us, they just as surely, there will be not intellectually excellent need to have access to the wider university. It is the Catholic colleges or universities in the next century un- whole university faculty, not simply its theologians, that less the theological reflection happening in our theology provides the challenge for intellectual excellence in the and religious studies departments now impinges on the theological enterprise. intellectual life of the whole institution,

I. International Theological Commission, "On the Interpretation of 4. For a record of recent professional discussion, see the 1987 annual Dogma,"Status Quiwstionis,inOrigins20:1 (May 17, 1990), I, 3-5. publication of the College Theology Society, Theologyaml the Univer- sity,ed., John Apczynski: Liberal1.4.ormng and the Religion Major:A 2. Matthew Lamb, "Will There Catholic Theology in the United Report to the Profession, Stephen D. Crites. The American Academy States?"America,May 26, 1990, 523ff. of Religion Task Force for the Ainetican Association of Colleges. 1990. 3. Northrup Frye,The Great Code (SanDiego:Harcourt,Brace, Joyanovich, 1982).

60 Response Upon Reception of the 1991 Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, CSC, Award

Walter J. Ong, SJ

Needless to say, I am deeply honored by this award 1930s, and before that at Fordham University. We all from the Association of Catholic Colleges and Univer- recall similar figures, such as Monsignor John A. Ryan sities and am especially honored because of the person and others, but not so many before Vatican II as after. after whom the award has so fittingly been named. It is Although American Catholic colleges and universities perhaps worth noting that this is the second time I am are today undergoing various crises, the situation of the indebted to Father Hesburgh for an award, the first church vis-a-vis the rest of the world is in some notable being in 1982, when he placed the hood on me conferring ways stronger now than ever in our past, largely because the honorary LL.D. (Doctor of Laws) at the commence- of the work and attitudes of mind which developed in ment ceremonies of the University of Notre Dame. So all Catholic universities and colleges. One way in which the of you will, I hope, understand when I say that I do feel, church's situation is stronger is that the church has what if not deserving, at least somewhat in context here. we may call a higher secular validity than she ever. . In expressing my gratitude for this award, I should enjoyed before. Today the secular world listens to what like to reflect on what should be a commonplace, name- the Roman Catholic Church has to say, what individual ly, that American Catholic higher education has been Catholics as Catholics have to say, and what Catholic and is something special in the life of the church. Our higher educational institutions have to say more atten- network of American colleges and universities has been tively than it did in the past. The secular world may a unique achievement. No nation in history has ever had often disagree with us. It remains the secular world, not a comparable number of Catholic institutions of higher always friendly to the Christian faith, sometimes openly learning. And this at a time when the vastness of hostile, but more attentive to that faith than it used to be. knowledge, activated or stored for retrieval, which con- One reason, I believe, is that, largely through the effects fronts human beings and with which higher education of Catholic higher education, we ourselves have begun has to deal is certainly billions of times greater than it to talk more to the whole world around us. Our earlier has been in the not too distant pastinsofar as we can isolation was partly, though by no means entirely, our in some loose way quantify so awesome a possession as own fault.Even in addressing others, we were often knowledge. employing a not entirely modern idiom so that in fact In our day American Catholic universities and col- we were talking mostly to ourselves. The improvement leges have more and more programmatically involved of our idiom has grown largely out of our college and themselves with growing intensity in all the arts and university work and the necessary breadth of the ques- sciences and professionsnot to mention sports, which tions which this work must address. we must prudently remember were integral to the an- Today more than ever American Catholic higher cient Greekpaideia.Our universities and colleges have education is a frontier where the church meets the world also dedicated themselves more and more to the connec- and the world meets the church. Our higher education tion between faith and justice explicitly treated by the is a means of inculturation. When we talk of incultura- Second Vatican Council as central to the Judeo-Christian tion today, as we so often do, we are likely to think of it tradition. Indeed, such dedication well preceded, and as applying specifirAlly to cultures in the so-called Third prepared for, Vatican II. I myself recall, as an example World. Europeans brought to lands new to themthe geographically close to me, the pioneering academic faith, pure and noninculturated. But the Catholic faith developments in social service spearheaded by Father that Europeans brought to other peoples was a Catholic Joseph C. liusslein, SJ, at Saint Louis University in the faith incultu rated in Europe and European institutions. This was the only way the Europeans had known the Father Ong is Emeritus Professor of lumanities at Saint Louis University. faith or could know it.

61 3 Inculturation the church must always have,for the countable "marvels of modern science," astonishing, Son of God became incarnate not in a setof abstractions but somehow theologically irrelevant.They are quite but at a particular time and place inhuman history. normal developments in the15-billion-year-old There never has been and anr.ot be aCatholicism that universe that God createdand that basin:en, is, and will is not inculturated. Belloc's oncefamous statement. continue to be entirely under God'sprovidence. God "The church is Europe: and Europe is thechurch," today created a world that, from the start, win headed intothe sounds not only chauvinistically provincial butalso to-. production of computers and all the rest. We must con- tally disabling to the church's mission. tinue to inculturate the faith in God's realworld such as Inculturation in any given human society is af course he has given us in these later days to know it,with all not without dangers. For the chwch is notthe secular its vast potentials, keeping aware meanwhile,of course, world and the secular world is not the church norreadi- that many new development; can be used forgood or ly convertible into the church. Conversion has aspecial for evil. meaning in Christian theology. It is a grace givenby 1 his is the great, encompa ssing challengethat lies God's God, not by any human institution. Yet thefaith and the ahead: the challenge of relating to the faith and to secular have to meet and to coexist in the waysthe providence our growing knowledge of God's immense histories of various peoples make postiible. They must universe, of human beings' place in it, and of the mean- meet in an intensive wey in our universitiesand col- ing of the Incarnation in it. This challenge isinevitably leges. lnculturation is not always easy. It has given us felt ia our Catholic colleges and universities morethan many martyrs, and many in our own aay,such as, in El in any other Catholic conte. -t. Some brave new starts Salvador, Archbishop Oscar Romero or the sixJesuits have been made in further developing theCatholic their Imusekeeper and her daughter gunneddown tradition in newly requisite ways, but we have only by the military. We can be happy and reassuredof the begun. effectiveness of our mission by the concern forsuch As we work to continue what we have beendoing in martyrs shown on our campuses. facing this and other challenges and opportunities Catholics have not, of course, always managed this before us, one recurrent question is and will be:Of the meeting of faith and secular culture perfectly.In an decisions open to American Catholic collegesand article, "Faith and Fiction," in the recent Volume 9of the universities in the ways we relate to the Catholicfaith CCICA Bulletin (1990: 49-52), published by theCatholic all else around and in us, which are the decisions serving Commission on Intellectual and Cultural Affairs, Anita the greater glory of God? We recall that St. Ignatiusof Gandolfo has noted that "prior to Vatican II, the term Loyola, born just 5tX) years ago this year, did not usethe 'Catholic novel' was most often invoked in defense of a expression "for the greater gle,r;, of God" as a motto, didactic fiction employed primarily to catechizeand such as one might inscribe at the top of a letter or paste discipline the faithful." Catholic fiction meant fiction onto something to shoot it off toGod, prepaid, or per- with a "parochial purpose," largely for persons who haps even to advertise God's cause, as our media-con- were unable to manage suchthings as Thomas Merton's scious world might ambition.i gnatius'sordinary statement that reading James Joyce was afactor in his motto at the top of his letters wai not"AMDG" (ad conversion to the Catholic Church (57). SinceVatican II, Inajorem Dei gloriam, to the greater glory of God) but and indeed well before this council, Catholic hi.gher rather the first three letters of the name of jeuis, ;Es tir educational institutions ha whelped move Cati folic con- IHS. In the Spiritual Exercises and the Constitutionsof the sciousness weh beyond this position. Our powers of Society of Jesus Ignatius uses "for the greater gloryof aesthetic digestion !rye improved. And so have other God" not as a motto but as a recipe to be turned to when inculturating powers. a decision is beingfaced--that is the reason for the It is or should be axiomatic that at any given time this comparative "greater," referring to a choice between world is as much God's world as it ever has been. What alternatives. Facing a future full of difficult decisions, is going on today in such developments as computei s, we must consider in each casewhich of the alternatives voyages to outer space, the globalinformation society, we might choose wouldmake for God's greater glory the tremendous growth of knowledge in the physical not for ours. sciences and, c,s I seriously believe, the even greater The decisions that confront us toaay are momentous, grewth of knowledge in the humanities (we must many of them intensified bythe destabilization and the remember that the entire history of science is part, not horrors brought on by the present war in the Middle of science, but of the humanities)all these and count- East, but the d'xisions should not overwhelm us,for, we less other developments around us represent stages in can thank God, we work in aliving tradition which has the evolving universe which God created and with faced difficult times without number before. We car. which he is concerned, and indeed is involved through look back with heartfelt gratitude to our predecessors in the Incarnation, as much today as he has ever been in Catholic higher educational institutions, our devoted the past. Such impreseive new developments in our faculty and administrators and staff and students and world should not be waived off patronizingly as unac- benefactors, cierical and lay, women and men, both

62 Catholic and non-Catholic, whoover the years have where we now corporately face our new challenges. made their own difficult decisions and done the Facing new challenges is a way of showing that weare demanding work which has broughtus to the point alive.

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